Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Lore

 

Unsurprisingly, the mist group did not particularly enjoy their experience, looking quite unhappy and still bleeding from their ears and eyes in several cases. They had taken several hours to return after the dungeon group had come back from their expedition. After a quick debrief on what everyone found today, everyone just wanted to go to sleep and not deal with their existence continuing. Despite the fact that a good portion of the day remained.

 

Most people that is. 

 

“Fresia! You got to go check out an unexplored stone carver ruin while I had to deal with constant screaming that made my ears bleed! It’s not fair! Come on, let's get back in there, we can’t miss the opportunity!” Dacre whined, not particularly nobly. 

 

No longer randomly sharpening knives and looking far more like a more typical maid, Freesia stared back at her in exasperation. “Milady, don’t be so willful.”

 

“Thought you were gonna stop coddling her or something,” Flora commented from the corner, eating a mushroom and snuggling Catnip, petting her ears. “Introducing her to the harsh nature of this dungeon sounds like a good start right? And it’s something she’s passionate about!”

 

Fresia just stared at her. “Not acquiescing to Milady’s every wish is another way of not coddling her, a much safer one.”

“I mean yeah, but this is more interesting. Plus…” she started, before turning to Catnip and whispering to her “You alright with playing as a translator for Dacre and going back in there? I don’t have much energy myself but I’d still be down for an interesting trip like that if you want …” 

 

Catnip thought about it. On one hand, another trip into the dungeon was dangerous and required effort. On the other hand, she would finally get access to the sacred treasures of lore and worldbuilding, a staple for both isekais and videogames. Ultimately the decision was easy. 

 

“Remember, we just discovered that otherworlder bullshit allows me to understand any language. Including ancient ones I definitely shouldn’t be able to know at all…” she eventually said. 

 

“Oh my gosh really! Think of all the history! The secrets, the treasure, the glory! The forbidden knowledge of the workings of ancient civilizations and dungeons, uncovered before our eyes, glorious as the most exotic wheels of cheese!” She rambled in excitement and looked to Fresia with puppy dog eyes that honestly weren’t half bad. “Pretty please? Can I?”

 

Fresia sighed. “Fine Milady, we can go explore the secrets of the ancient civilizations with the cat girl.” 

 

“Yes!” Dacre cried out in joy.

 

“Lady, how the actual hell are you so innocent and happy in these conditions?” one of the mercenaries, Rose, called out from across the room. “I had that innocence beaten out of me by the time I was 9 and this is some freaky shit even for me.”

 

“Other than the horrific trauma this is actually pretty cool! I mean, I respect my family and the duty we carry as nobility, but always knowing that I have to go to garish parties with people that don’t even appreciate proper cheese and get married to some young bachelor for political reasons?” She chuckled, slightly hysterically. “I may have lived my life in luxury without hardship, so I’m quite unprepared for our current situation, but it’s just so much more alive and interesting than anything before!” Dacre grinned in a strangely sad but also unsettling way. “ Gosh, if we actually survive this whole thing, it’ll be an experience I’ll treasure for the rest of my life!”

 

“Oh. That’s actually somewhat depressing,” Rose responded, “Weird to think about duty and all that, never really thought about it myself.” 

 

“Really? How did you end up living such a life free of responsibility?” Dacre asked innocently. 

“I was born an orphan in the slums who had to steal to survive.” 

 

“Oh,” the Lady replied quietly. “Right…”

 

“What? Did you forget already I was one of the crew paid to kill you? Ya don’t end up taking desperate jobs for coin if you lived a happy life lady,” Rose replied, “Shocker, you’re privileged as a noble.”

 

“Yes… and that’s why I must fulfill my duty as a Lady!” Dacre attempted to reason.

 

“What, to be sold by your parents and pop out babies till ya die? I’ll skip on that one,” she replied bluntly, and turned back to what she had been doing before, which happened to be playing tic tac toe on the floor with the other mercenaries.  

 

Dacre looked a little miserable after that exchange. 

 

“Did we just witness the cracking of her innocence and world view?” Flora whispered to Catnip. “I mean, that was kind of harsh, but it does look like Dacre would be far better off letting go of our silly notions of nobility and following what she wanted to do.” Catnip nodded, “Yeah, I’m not from this world but nobility in mine was pretty bad and utterly misogynistic, the duty stuff especially was all nonsense especially when applied to women. Wanna try to add a couple of more cracks to the societal bindings that entrap her innocent mind on the upcoming exploration?” she whispered back. Dacre was still looking kind of miserable in the background, her maid walking to her side in an attempt to comfort her. “Yeah, sounds fun and technically a good thing, I’m in,” Flora whispered after looking at Dacre’s miserable expression for a moment. 

 

“Hey, Dacre, you still on for the whole exploration and discovery? Wouldn’t want you to miss it!” Catnip called out to her.

 

The Lady broke out of her mood and nodded enthusiastically. “Heck yeah, pardon my language!”

 

“Righto, comrade, let's go spill some blood in the name of knowledge!” Flora cried out, pulling Catnip up abruptly by the hand. “Come on m’lady, we’ve got history to discover!”

 

“What does spilling blood… oh whatever, Fresia, are you coming?” 

 

“Of course Milady. I wouldn’t leave you unattended in such a place,” Fresia responded with a bit of resignation. One glance at Dacre’s expression seemed to grant her plenty of energy however, the servant sharing in the joy of her master. 

 

And so for the second time that day Catnip headed into the dungeon, once again leading. She was a little tired, but Dacre’s enthusiasm was infectious and she really did want to enjoy some forgotten secrets of the isekai verse that would hopefully coincidentally contain key knowledge about the nature of the world or something. 

 

___

Reaching the town area, they waited a bit to see if a similar horde of monsters would appear, while Dacre looked at the area in wonder. Apparently most stone carver ruins were more grandly designed than this, Dacre wondering if perhaps this place had to be built quickly for some reason compared to their other labyrinths. 

 

A number of stone hexapedes did indeed come out of the stonework at this point, but far less than last time. Perhaps they or the infected war effort had killed most of those in the town. Dacre was somewhat surprisingly not put off at all by the appearance of the creatures, instead noting the type of monster they were and wondering if this dungeon might have an insectoid theme. Her blades of water were frustratingly easier to conjure and just as effective as Catnip’s blood sickles, without the side effect of having to literally use your own blood. The lady just shrugged and explained that she had been tutored to use her water major fairly effectively by her family for years, so Catnip shouldn’t worry so much. It was still annoying though, especially since she was able to easily form sharp tendrils of water as well that slashed and held down the insects with a control Catnip didn’t have anything close to, fighting somewhat similarly to Flora. Flora tried out manipulating some of the mushrooms scattered around, but it didn’t work at all, her magic not considering mushrooms as close enough to plants. 

 

For now, due to the more powerful nature of the fungal infected hexapede they had encountered before, they stuck on the side with less mushrooms, heading down the old roads of the place while occasionally checking out some of the buildings. Most were what looked like cramped living spaces, almost like army barracks. Though most things had rotted away with time, they also found a number of old weapons, mostly distinctly curved and knives, and various sets of tools, most prominently what looked like ancient but high durable chisels. The stone carvers were called stone carvers for a reason. Fresia claimed several of the knives for herself. Catnip took some of the chisels, one sharp knife to cut herself with, and grabbed some swords to give to Frank later. Flora focused on finding and taking all the entos she could find, the coins apparently being made of what looked like silver mixed with something else, making them valuable in the modern day still. Dacre claimed a bit of everything for ‘historical value’. 

 

Unfortunately there was very little written language to be found, only some labels carved into stone above certain buildings, such as one marked Chisels and more!, a sign for a shop filled with well, chisels and more. There were no bodies anywhere, the people living here seemed to have just disappeared, although there were signs in places like the chisel store that they raided their valuables on the way out. 

 

“Well that was kind of disappointing,” Catnip eventually said, having reached the end of this particular row of buildings having found nothing of interest. 

 

“There’s still plenty we can glean from this Catnip!” Dacre retorted, throwing out a water blade at one of the few hexapedes still trying to attack them, the rest of them having died or retreated at this point. “Why did they leave? Why was everything built so functionally when most stone carver ruins are grand and artistic? Was the metal for these weapons mined within the mountain itself?”

 

Catnip looked at the knife she had claimed, identifying it.

 

[Dark Iron Blade]

 

“Huh. Identify doesn’t tell me much, but it does say it’s dark iron. Is dark iron a special metal or something?”

 

“It’s a stronger variant of iron that rusts less and has slightly better mana flow,” she replied, “Knights of the kingdom sometimes use it for their blades if they can afford it, as mostly dwarves are the only ones mining it, and they don’t do so for cheap.”

 

“Cool,” she said, dashing forward to a pede that was sneaking up on Flora, choosing to try physically attacking this time. Her claws wouldn’t cut it, but she jumped from behind onto the insect and slashed at its segments with the blade instead, finding it easily cutting through the beastie. It died a moment later. 

 

“Anyway, nice talk and all you two but there’s plenty more to explore, so don’t feel too down yet.” Flora said, glancing back at the hexapede Catnip had just killed. “The buildings get a bit taller further into the town so there should probably be more interesting stuff towards the center.”

 

Catnip nodded and the group walked through a gap between the buildings and started heading further into the area. More and more buildings had carved labels, mostly more shops including a store that said it sold food. The store itself was somewhat more filled with mushrooms, mostly the edible kind, and Catnip was able to pick out a carved stone slab for purchasing “Locally Grown Nutri-Shrooms - 50% off!”. It listed a farm within ‘Block C23’ of the labyrinth as the source, a number of other shops confirming that this ‘town’ was designated ‘Block C24’ of the labyrinth, meaning the farming space was next door. They’d have to check that out and see how food was grown underground, although if they grew mushrooms for food it was likely linked to the fungal infestation in some way, perhaps a modified fungus gone wrong. ‘Nutri-Shrooms’ didn’t sound like the name of a natural type of mushroom, but like a carefully cultivated variety. Dacre was rather fascinated by all this. 

 

Suddenly, Catnip’s Feline Instinct pinged as they left one of the buildings, Catnip attempting to roll out of the way of the danger. She didn’t 100% succeed, as a good chunk of her arm was torn off by the mandibles of a new creature which they quickly identified. 

 

Stone Crawler lvl [56][Rank 1]

 

The creature was small and skittered away up the walls of the building before they could attack back, seemingly specialized in ambushing. The party readied themselves, looking around as another seemed to appear from nowhere and jump at Fresia, who reacted quickly and immediately slashed it elegantly with her knife, the creature neatly falling into halves. More hexapedes that had previously retreated crawled out and around buildings suddenly, attacking in tandem with another Crawler that went for Flora, a vine easily catching it and squeezing it. They tried to retreat into the store, but instead the creatures herded them back onto the street and started pushing them towards the center of the town. Both monster types were weak, but the crawlers kept them on their toes and just kept coming.

 

“Well now isn’t this a little more interesting,” Flora said with a grin as they continued being pushed down the street towards a larger building near the center of the area. “Do you think the dungeon is coordinating this too or anything?” 

 

“I don’t think so. Dungeons very rarely take individual control of their monsters,” Dacre replied, “It isn’t exactly surprising for insectoid monsters to use swarm tactics, it’s in their instincts really and they’re likely just trying to push us towards a stronger critter or something.”  

 

“Milady is correct. May I remove your hand again Catnip? It appears these creatures use poison,”

 

Catnip looked down at the hand that had been bitten while continuing to dance around slashing with her new blade, trying out the fighting style while focusing on trying to empower her body with mana. Her hand did indeed look swollen and kind of blackened, she just hadn’t noticed, instead focused on developing the new fighting style. “Don’t bother, I’ll take care of it,” she responded to Fresia briefly and sliced it off herself, grabbing the severed hand as it fell and chucking it at some of the insects while manipulating the blood in it to explode into a bit of a mist, an attempt to obscure the creature's vision. It did seem to confuse the monsters slightly, allowing everyone to get a couple more hits in and causing one of the Crawlers to miss its jump. Dacre’s better manipulation of her water had inspired her to try and use her blood manipulation more creatively. 

 

“That’s a pretty neat use of your magic,” Flora commented, “A mist of blood to blind your enemies? Effective and aesthetically pleasing.”

 

The horde pushed them back to a tall official looking building, forcing them to back through its double doors. The room inside looked like it had a reception desk, then some back rooms that lead to offices or something as well as a staircase to another floor. Catnip didn’t have long to consider this though, and her Feline Instincts once agained saved her cookies, warning her of a fast moving dart shot by something crouched upside down on the ceiling. It quickly started shooting more darts faster, scattering them in an attack against the entire party, Flora blocking it with a vine, Fresia dodging it, and Dacre being too distracted, Catnip jumping in front of her at the last second to take the dart herself. Very quickly she felt her health start dropping and movement slowing, allowing the horde to get another hit in as black viens seemed to spread across her body. 

 

Congratulations! You died!

 

Flora looked briefly panicked when she fell, but quickly got her composure back, probably remembering that Catnip was indeed immortal. The insects also quickly stopped attacking her, instead crawling over her ‘corpse’ and backing the 3 remaining party members into a corner, where they each fought desperately. She hadn’t noticed it before, but they had been fighting for a decent amount of time at this point, and both Dacre and Flora were sending out less attacks, having almost run their mana dry. Fresia picked up their slack and danced around in front of them, slashing her knives and occasionally kicking at with her foot, a hidden blade in each boot piercing the insects. Dacre and Flora both focused their remaining magic entirely on blocking or deflecting the darts coming from the thing on the ceiling, still firing them quickly without stopping. 

 

“Uh… I think we bought off a little more than we can chew here!” Flora said in a bit of a panic. “My mana regen isn’t nearly fast enough to keep up with this.” 

 

Oh shit… this was actually quite bad wasn’t it? 

 

The catgirl cringed as the creatures crawled over her, regening for a second to be alive and then immediately dying again from the poison. God that stuff was annoying, but she’d be getting good leveling in for Undying and Poison Resistance. She finally Identified the thing on the ceiling. 

 

Hunter Crawler lvl [??] [Rank 2] 

 

God dammit, they hadn’t exactly been able to handle the only other [Rank 2] they fought, and that was when she wasn’t dead on the floor while her friends fought for their lives in a corner. They had gotten a bit too overconfident after the first expedition into the dungeon went decently well, the hexapedes not really able to overwhelm them on their own and excellent for leveling and grinding. Speaking of grinding, Catnip literally had not yet checked out her gains from the earlier expedition or assigned any new free stat points, which was stupid of her. Some sort of stupid idea about saving checking her levels until after enough grinding so she could nicely see the results of her efforts all at once or something. None of this made much of a difference though, as her free stat points didn’t help all that much, most of her stats being raised on their own without her checking, but still. 

 

Finally after all that inner monologue, she felt like she had recovered enough mana to do something. She was still dead unfortunately, health regen bringing her back several times only for poison to kill her again, but if she could surprise the crawler with a big hit she could give her friends a chance, who were still struggling in the corner. Her blood had indeed run onto the floor, so she could use that to form a quick blood sickle, but it probably wouldn’t be nearly strong enough to do much to a [Rank 2]. Catnip tried to think about her other options here. 

 

Earlier she had been trying out fighting physically with her new sword while enforcing her body with mana, discovering that her blood magic was quite helpful for that. It kind of did say something about in the description of the blood mage class, she probably should have tried it out far sooner. Instead of trying to wing it right now. Oh well, she’d try to remember details better in the future. 

 

As the legs of the hexapedes continued to rather creepily skitter over her, she had a 200 iq idea: If she could use the blood in her veins to enforce her body with mana, could she use Blood Manipulation on the blood in her body to just straight up move it around magically like a puppet? Catnip was pretty sure she could force her blood to move pretty fast with Blood Manipulation, the blood sickles traveling at a decent speed, so puppeting her own body via her blood should theoretically allow her to essentially move faster at the cost of whatever mana it took to manipulate all of the blood in whatever part of they body she intended to move. Taken to an extreme, since she could make blood float and all that, it was possible Catnip could even have the shittiest form of flying ever by puppeting her entire bloodstream. There was also a good possibility that suddenly moving all of that blood around would actually just cause her to explode into blood and gore as it forced its way out of her skin and body instead of dragging it with it, but for some reason she got the sense that wouldn’t happen . None of this seemed particularly immediately relevant to her predicament but… 

 

She was 90% sure that the Dark Iron Blade was actually pretty strong, and could probably hurt the Hunter Crawler much more than her blood sickles. It’s just that being dead on the floor might kind of prevent her from getting into melee range to attack. But if she puppeted her body with Blood Manipulation and launched herself and her blade all of a sudden when they were ignoring her like this, that might change things. 

 

Still dead but now prepared for her move, Catnip focused on all the blood in her body and linked it to her magic. In an instant, she controlled the blood to suddenly launch her at the ceiling, additionally puppeting her arm into slashing the blade faster it held, far faster than she could just normally move the limb. Immediately she felt a huge drain on her mana and slammed into the crawler on the ceiling a second later, her blade creating a gaping wound on its side. Her body blocked its mouth that shot out its darts so she was immediately shot several times, but being dead it didn’t really matter. Realizing the wound wasn’t deadly to it and that she would need to keep it distracted for longer so that the party could deal with the hexapedes and crawlers below, she used the last of her mana to force her body to not fall quite yet and stabbed the blade deep into its side, leaving it there and holding on to the grip of the sword. Her body slackened but continued to block the shots of the crawler, Catnip now hanging from the ceiling, holding her blade with a literal death grip. 

 

Now all Catnip had to do was be shot by deadly darts repeatedly while her party cleaned up below. It seemed this crawler at least recognized that even though she was dead, she was still a threat to be attacked. Which actually helped her right now since it wouldn’t try to move her body out of the way and attack the others since it was too focused on attacking her. 

 

It felt like forever while the sounds of battle continued around her. In her current position, she really couldn’t see much of the room, so she could only hear her group for now, the sounds of the creatures being stabbed by Fresia, strangled or whipped by Flora’s vines, or cut by Dacre’s water blades and tendrils. The group was pretty focused on the fight, although Flora called out to her at one point to ask if she was okay up there. Catnip used some mana to move her mouth a bit and say “yeah.” 

 

After the sound of something heavy being shoved around the room, things finally started finishing up. 

 

“Catnip, you can come down now! We blocked the door and defeated most of the horde anyway!” Flora called up to them. Having regained some mana at this point, Catnip used her blood puppetry to pull her sword out and give the crawler one more good slash before falling, landing on the floor with a thump. 

 

The Crawler turned to attack the others now but they all simultaneously attacked it, Flora’s vines and Dacre’s water hurting it in its weakened state. Fresia finished it off with a solid throw of one of her knives, only partially cutting into it but dealing the final damage needed to kill the thing, which promptly fell to the floor directly onto Catnips face. Fresia took no mind of this. Flora thought it was funny and did nothing. Dacre actually looked a little apologetic and helped take it off her face. 

 

Your group has defeated Stone Hexapede lvls [35 - 46][Rank 1][DM] * 28

Your group has defeated Stone Crawler lvl[43-52][Rank 1][DM] * 9

Your group has defeated Hunter Crawler lvl[??][Rank 2][DM]

“So, post battle review: What could we have done better?” Catnip eventually said as they leaned against different parts of the room. 

 

“Catnip, since when have we ever done something like a post battle review? “ Flora questioned, scratching her chin quizzically."Though actually it might be useful for improving… there’s really no good reason our team didn’t do something like this before,” she added after a bit of thought.. “Anyway, we fucked up. Big time. We went in underprepared and got swarmed, and would have straight up just died if Catnip wasn’t here.”

 

Dacre gulped at that. 

 

“Uh, are- are you okay Catnip?” she eventually said hesitantly. Dacre hadn’t really seen her Undying skill in action before after all. Although neither Catnip or Flora had managed to remember to attempt to destroy her worldview as they had planned earlier, seeing someone die over and over did seem to have impacted her innocence somewhat. 

 

“Yep! Right as rain!” Catnip replied with a grin, bouncing on her feet a little. “I bet I got a ton of levels in undying and poison resistance from that! Honestly that whole experience wasn’t even that bad other than the horrible agony!!”

 

Dacre didn’t know how to respond to that. 

 

“While I admit It was needed this time to save us all, that was pretty intense Catnip. You still kind of have like 50 small dart things sticking out of your stomach,” Flora replied, examining her briefly. “You really need new clothes at this point…”

 

“Na, this shirt is holey,” Catnip replied, “It’s practically a treasure.

 

“Nice one,” Flora replied with a grin, “Though you still really need more clothes.”

 

“Eh, I’ll live.” 

 

“You’ll literally always live -” 

 

“Anyway, um, adventure comrades! This building looks like a pretty main one, there might be valuable historical information here!” Dacre interrupted. “Come on, let's get searching, Fresia, you too!”

 

Fresia looked reluctant but joined her lady. Flora and Catnip joined the search a few minutes later, having needed to finish their banter first. 

 

The building seemed to be an actual place for local governance or something. Or at least there were a ton of what looked like offices for people to work, although once again basically everything had rotted away with time. Other than some signs that labeled the position of the person at each desk, a few saying things like Block C24 Finance Director  or Block C24 Public Works Director. It seemed the Stone Carvers had a fairly modern form of local governance. A few desks even had some random doodads on them like the kind everyone always has on office desks, somehow being one of the only things that survived the sands of time. This included a carved stone bird, a pendulum with several hanging metal balls, a shattered tube that looked like it once was filled with some kind of memorizing liquid, and a mug on every desk with the remains of pens inside. Catnip wiped off the dust from one of them and found that it said #1 Dad on it. Some things never change. 

 

They searched several rooms, Dacre freaking out about basically everything including the random thingamajigs on people's desks. She tried to take a lot of them but she didn’t bring a bag or anything so she wasn’t able to take much. Instead she just took the carved bird and put in the dad mug, taking that with her. 

 

They even found an ancient janitor's closet. Not that there was much of anything left in it. The whole building was like a boring office building but made of carved stone. 

 

Eventually they found an important looking staircase and followed it up, leading to a floor with more office space and such but more importantly, a very official and important looking door at the end of the floor. With a sign that said Block C24 Mayor. If they were going to find anything kind of important or interesting in this building, it would probably be in this room. 

 

This quickly proved to be true as unlike the other rooms, there was something that didn’t even look aged at all. A safe in the corner, with a brand name on it. Preservation enchantments and more! - Copyright -The Historical Society. The safe was indeed a safe so it wasn’t just open automatically, but Catnip was able to find the key in the remains of the Mayor’s desk. Rather fortunate it wasn’t locked with a number combination or something, as the combination needed to unlock it would likely have been stored by being written on a piece of paper or something in the Mayor’s desk, rotting away ages ago. 

 

“My gosh! A stash of ancient knowledge stored by elusive and expensive Preservation magic, the holy grail of archaeological studies and ruin explorers! A treasure like no other!” Dacre exclaimed in excitement. 

 

“Holy shit, you’re right, LORE!” Catnip replied, jumping up and down and trying to give Dacre a high five much to her confusion. “Come on people, chant with me! LORE. LORE, LORE, LORE YEAAAAAAH!” Flora, being herself, of course joined the chant immediately regardless of what it meant, jumping up and down in time with Catnip’s jumps.  Dacre joined with a bit of hesitation a moment later, and Fresia just looked on in exasperation. Clearly she did not understand the significance of lore when it comes to worldbuilding and progressing the plot forward. Although once again she seemed quite bemused and pleased by Dacre’s clear excitement and joy. 

 

Catnip took the key and turned it in the safe’s slot, having some difficulty but ultimately unlocking it. It popped open, revealing a space filled with a few books, some notebooks for recording things or something, and some paperwork and several folded up larger parchments. Much to Catnip’s amusement, the back of the stashes door had a ‘our company mission’ thing about striving to make the best products in the most sustainable ways. Reading the whole message was an… interesting experience. 

Our Company Mission: 

The Historical Society has prided itself on bringing customers sustainable, quality, and affordable products for centuries. From our founding till today, we’ve always sought to embody the goals of our founders while improving upon our products of the years. When the Historical Society was founded, it was just a humble group of historians focused on understanding the past through the ruins of our ancient ancestors, but it quickly became more than that. Our drive to preserve history for the future and the past quickly became a passion in creating high quality preservation enchanted items, preserving our culture far into the future, no matter how many Cataclysms occur. The honorable words of our great founder inspire us to this day.

 

-“Fucking hell I like history n’ shit but how can we even understand all these ancient civilizations and ruins if they didn’t even preserve like anything? Irresponsible and uninspired. We must aspire to do better, just to spite those bastards who refused to properly preserve things. Assholes didn’t even have the foresight to record much of anything on carvings or stone tablets.” - Founder Vealarsian Plathathrone, celebrated scholar and revealer of truths. 

 

It was quite sad that no one else in the party could understand the language, because Catnip didn’t have the energy right now to read it all aloud for everyone and this was kind of hilarious. Maybe she would read it to Flora and Dacre later… if she’s able to move the safe at all that is. 

 

“Hey, does anyone know if we might be able to move this safe, break it off from the wall and take it back with us? If preservation magic is so valuable it would make sense to mostly keep stuff still stored in the safe if possible,” Catnip eventually said as Dacre and Flora took some stuff out of the safe, flipping through the books without any understanding but excited anyway.

 

“I second that idea!” Dacre added enthusiastically, putting the record book she was reading back into the safe and grabbing one of the large folded pieces of parchment. “There’s so much valuable information here that we just need to take with us, and I don’t trust you people to store them without damaging them.”

 

“Hmmm… Hey Flora, can you do roots and stuff with your plant magic?” Catnip eventually asked.

 

“Yes, I can indeed! Ya have an idea on how I can use it?” 

 

“Don’t plant roots manage to damage strong stone structures over time? What if you slowly grew some roots in the walls’ cracks to eventually damage the structure enough to take the whole safe with us?” Catnip propositioned. In the background Dacre opened up her parchment and her eyes went wide, the increasingly not very noble seeming girl pouring over every inch of it with frantic eyes. 

 

Flora tapped her chin several times then nodded. “Yeah, should work, I think. It’ll take me a while though, and exhaust my magic power several times over since it’s not really the intended use of the magic.” She grinned “I’ll do it, for a favor from you Catnip.”

 

“What kind of favor are we talking about,” she replied with a bit of hesitation.

 

You are reading story Isekai #2309523, Variant 2: Op Undying Skill at novel35.com

“More of your time and cuddles.”

 

“Oh, okay, I agree then.”

 

And so they spent the next hour or so having Flora crack the safe off the wall while Catnip looked through some of the books, Fresia putting them back in the safe in a maid approved neat manner. Dacre still stared at her parchment. 

 

For the most part the books present in the safe were just records. Records that recorded years worth of financial matters of this particular Block, of problems that cropped up, of important developments. The records were pretty extensive, covering over 15 years of the town’s history, seemingly from its first founding.

 

The first 5 years were very quiet. Created by a private company, the entire labyrinth, apparently called the Catastrophe Shelter, for the most part had barely any population, most of the earlier expenditures and records having to do with construction and expansion. Block 24C was made fairly early on in the existence of the labyrinth, the construction apparently creating sections A, B, C, and D early on and adding a number for each new block. Block C was a farming focused sector, focused mainly on producing enough food for any potential survival situation underground, the main crop being the mushrooms that could grow in low light levels and eventually ‘Nutri-Shrooms’, modified variants of those same mushrooms that supplied enough nutrients to survive on. The other blocks weren’t exactly listed within the records as Block 24C’s records obviously focused on block C, but reports of trading of supplies and materials between the blocks suggested D focused on research and development, B focused on mining and forging, and A was the primary management sector that oversaw all the others. There were of course housing areas in each sector. 

 

After the first 5 years though, numbers spiked. Population moving into the sectors increased rapidly, as did the economic development of the area. It would be a happy time for the labyrinth if there weren’t other indications that trade from the outside world trickled to a stop pretty soon, and most moving in seemed to be refugees. The Cataclysm of this civilizations age had clearly begun, the records not recording much of its nature other than the fact that much of the outside world was left uninhabitable to its people. And that sometimes things that were not people breached the perimeter of the labyrinth and had to be driven off. 

 

Post Cataclysm, the shelter now recorded as Stone Haven, the next 10 years of records suggested a desperate survival with a focus on forging weapons in B, researching survival in rough conditions as well as stasis in D, and cultivation of varied mostly fungal crops in C, including seemingly magically manipulating something like the genetics of the crops to achieve their purposes. Block A seemed to manage the rest, and was also the most populous region and the last line of defense. The records of Block 24C ended after 10 years of this, the last entries suggesting that the population was evacuated to Block A in response to a number of threats inside the labyrinth and outside. 

 

Other than the things that seemed to occasionally breach through from outside based on recorded attacks, the main threats they had to evacuate from appeared to be the fungal infestation that originated in a part of Block D right next to Block C, and a ‘cultivated dungeon’ in Block D originally intended for the studies of dungeons and as a location for relatively safe leveling. Block D’s research crew clearly did not understand the concept of safe experimentation. Although it’s entirely possible that for the most part they did, perhaps the occasional attacks from the outside world had managed to disrupt their studies and release some of the dangerous stuff unchecked. Either way the Carvers messed up big time, evacuating everyone to Block A and maybe managing to survive there a bit longer. Knowing isekais, Block D’s research into stasis probably somehow worked out unlike their other endeavors and they preserved a portion of their population in pods for the future or something. Catnip actually really hoped they did that, firsthand accounts of the equivalent of this world’s apocalypse would be really helpful, and also probably cause Dacre to start frothing from her mouth in shock over the pure historical possibilities. 

 

It was interesting to learn that the dungeon was somewhat artificial, Dacre gave the sense earlier that most natural dungeons formed entirely on their own within old ruins. Another interesting tidbit was the fact that the dungeon was called ‘infested’, yet had no actual control over the fungal portion of itself as far as she could tell. The spreading fungi seemed to be entirely separate from the dungeon’s own will but still was considered part of the dungeon, at least according to the name. If dungeon cores happened to be sapient in this reality, she imagined it would be pretty miffed about that. With all this absolute nonsense going on, Catnip was pretty sure that to a seasoned researcher on ruins and dungeons, this place would be an incredible miracle studied for the rest of time. Unfortunately she herself was simply too uneducated to bask in the glory of this wondrous phenomena. Though she still thought it was kinda cool. 

 

Really, Catnip should be praised for gleaning all of this out of just a records book. To the unenlightened, a book with mostly just records of trades and transactions over the years wouldn’t be particularly meaningful. But Catnip was no fool, she had gazed into the abyss of trying to figure out the lore of video games based on item descriptions and minor visual cues before, and she had never been the same since. Nothing escaped her all-seeing eyes on their quest to uncover the fabric of the great lore tapestry in the sky, no matter the world. Yes, in the past 30 minutes of internal monologuing, she had begun to get just a glimpse of something far greater than herself, something - 

 

Something was squishing her cheeks actually. That something being Flora. Who was looking a little irritated at her for seemingly ignoring her for quite a while now. This required correction. 

 

“Oh. Hi. Sorry about ignoring you.”

 

“Hmmm… I hope so. Anyway, come check out this cool map Dacre found!” Flora replied after a second, seizing her cheek squishing in favor of grabbing one of Catnip’s hands to pull her towards a corner where Dacre was staring intently at her parchment, now spread out on the ground. 

 

“Ok.”

 

Dacre’s parchment, which happened to be the map in question, was rather enlightening. In that it was a rough map of the entirety of Stone Haven that clearly showed multiple exits, including ones on the other side of the mountains. Exits that would let them hopefully rejoin civilization. 

 

In hindsight the records had already suggested that the complex stretched under the mountains and had a multitude of exits, but Catnip had kind of ignored that fact until now. In favor of lore of course. 

 

“Okay so, we have a way out secured then?” she eventually said, sitting down with Flora to look at the map. 

 

“Hmm…. not quite, unfortunately. If I’m reading the layout and implied directions correctly, any route to take us to the other side of the mountains would involve passing through the significantly fungal infected area,” Dacre replied, staring at the parchment in thought. “Fresia, I am reading this right, right?” 

 

“Yes milady,” the maid replied, spontaneously appearing behind Dacre. Well, not actually, but that was what it kind of seemed like. At least to a significantly distracted cat girl who wasn’t paying attention at all to the maids movements or location. 

 

“Right… I must admit, I have not witnessed the fungal phenomena much myself, but I’m quite unnerved by the idea of traveling through an area where creatures can get ‘infested,’ the cheese connoisseur continued, “Monster to human infection is far from unknown in many circumstances. And the infested creatures being strong opponents themselves would also be an issue.” 

 

“Don’t be such a downer, a journey through the depths of a corrupted ruin sounds like a glorious adventure!” Flora replied, patting Dacre on the shoulder. “Although for the record you’re actually completely right and despite how interesting it sounds we should probably avoid the danger.”

 

“... I could always face the danger first myself y’know? Expose myself to the spores and see how detrimental and infectious they could be?” Catnip offered. “It’s not like it would kill me.”

 

“While that makes sense on some levels, the spores could affect you in some other way regardless of your Undying status,” Flora said sternly. “Does your skill protect you from spores taking over your mind? Or would you end up locked in a body no longer under your control for all eternity?” 

 

“Uh…”

 

“Exactly. And once again, I would really like you to try to not hurt yourself unnecessarily.”

 

“We should at least consider other options…” Dacre said, “Like traveling through the mists or the forest. Although those options might be even worse, those Lost Souls are absolutely terrifying and seem to be some of the weaker creatures there.” 

 

“Fuck, you’re right,” Flora replied, “I don’t like it but any option we have not only will suck but will depend on Catnip soaking up the first threats…” she said with a sigh, “Even if she deserves better than that.” 

 

“Language,” Fresia interjected. 

 

“We need to talk it over with the rest of the group anyway. Flora, do you have the safe fully broken off the wall and ready to be moved?” Catnip questioned.

 

“Ye fam, it’s not even that heavy. I think I could carry it,” the plant mage replied. 

 

“Alright, maybe we should, like try to get back and stuff,” Catnip said, “Though um, in terms of a sustainable supply of food, there seems to be a neighboring block that has ‘Nutri-Shrooms’ intended for supplying enough nutrients.”

 

“Are you sure that’s the best idea given the whole fungal infestation?”

 

“We’re already surviving off mushrooms already, so like, not all mushrooms will result in our imminent deaths or possessions, and the farming block I’m talking about appears to be on the non-fungal infected side according to the map,” Catnip replied, pointing at the map that Dacre still held. 

 

“Hmm…” Flora hummed in thought, “We still might encounter more monsters and stuff but given that we’ve determined there’s no easy way out of here, getting a solid source of food might be a good idea I suppose…” 

 

“Nutri-Shrooms sound super interesting as well. The stone carvers must have had a fairly advanced civilization to modify living things so directly, much better than any of humanity’s modern day understanding of the subject,” Dacre added, folding up the map and handing it to Fresia. “If we can take some samples back it might be rather valuable for research.” 

 

“Alright, yeah, lets go fam,” 

 

It fortunately wasn’t all that hard to go check out the farming area. For the most part, they had cleared out the non-fungal portion of the block in their earlier fight, and those that were left seemed busy skittering away from them. Really, with the whole warfare between the dungeon and fungus that Catnip now knew had lasted centuries, the dungeon probably had to use a good portion of its critters at all times just to defend its borders. Their party was hardly the priority, if anything their presence was beneficial for the dungeon according to Dacre, as dungeons generally did seem to gain some form of energy from adventurers and invaders. 

 

The opening to the next block over proved to be a blocky stone gate, some ruined gatehouses and stone brick walls surrounding the entrance. The tunnel led through a few meters of darkness, only to open up into a rather vast room, the same size as the entire town Block. Rows and rows of mushrooms grew from dirt floors, illuminated by glowing stones from above, and alternating in stripes of different varieties. On the distant side of the room, there did appear to be some creatures moving through the fields, but they made no move to attack. The closest one seemed to be another insectoid creature that looked a bit like a worker ant, periodically taking pieces of mushrooms and taking them away to the other side of the room. It was amazing how the shrooms had thrived over all this time, each variety mostly sticking to its own rows instead of going insane and growing everywhere. Perhaps the dungeons or some of its creatures helped keep it in check, they were known to do so after all. 

 

Catnip of course ate a little bit of each variety to test that they were safe. 

 

“How’s it taste?” Flora asked her while she chewed slowly on the first of the unknown varieties, a green mushroom with yellow spots. 

 

“Kind of sour, but in a good way,” she replied, moving onto another variety, this one bright red, “Hmm, and this is spicy. No poison seems to kick in for any of this.” The mushrooms spread all around outside the dungeon that they had been eating so far notably were also farmed in one of the rows. 

 

A blue one tasted like absolutely nothing. A small white one tasted somewhat sweet. One even tasted cheesy, Catnip quickly informing Dacre of this much to her delight. The lady rated it ‘3/10, too basic but respectable’. It apparently tasted too ‘fake’. And finally, the biggest and heartiest looking mushrooms, possibly the nutrishrooms, tasted like tofu with a side of lettuce. Whatever that meant. The rest of the party grabbed as many shrooms as they could carry of each variety, Fresia moving the fastest and somehow stacking her mushroom pile too far above her head. This made the walk back to the main base a little clumsy and difficult, but it was totally worth it. 

 

___

By the time they got back it seemed like most of the others were asleep. They kind of had chosen to go out and do another whole thing when everyone else had been tuckered out much earlier in the day. So the 4 of them decided to go to sleep too, Flora offering Dacre and Fresia to sleep on their side of the room because they looked kind of lonely on their side of the room, and both Catnip and Flora knew them a lot better now. Regrettably Dacre fell asleep in her maid’s arms before they could fulfill the promise of fully shattering her world view. There would be plenty of time later given how hard it would be to escape this whole situation. 

 

Catnip nuzzled up against Flora, leaning on the room’s wall, and sighed. It had been a long day. And she wanted to sleep. But she should probably check her status and her gains first. 

 

“Hmmm, you level up at all Flora?” she whispered

 

“Yeah, kind of hard not to. But I’m still stuck in the 50s of [Rank 1] in both my classes. Kind of sucks given the amount of [Rank 2]s it seems will be soon facing,” the tired mage replied, indulging Catnip’s nuzzling. 

 

“Hm. What’s the typical level and [Rank] range for most people in Alvaria and Verdon anyway?”

 

“I think most villagers and typical citizens remain within [Rank 0] for most of their lives. Seems kinda lazy, but really not everyone wants to deal with all the violence required for truly leveling,” Flora said quietly. “Most towns and cities are protected enough for it not to be an issue.” 

 

“Hm, what about like guards and soldiers and such?” 

 

“Mostly low [Rank 1]s. Some elite soldiers reach as high as 3, but not many. [Rank 4]s and above pretty much only occur in some of the better adventurer parties,” she explained. “I believe the Empire as well as the nations of some other species tend to be higher leveled and ranked in general, not to mention whatever nonsense the Immortal Peoples are up to.” 

 

“Huh. Why are humans still around then? And what’s up with Immortal Peoples? I haven’t heard them mentioned before,” Catnip inquired, shifting a bit. 

 

“Population I think mostly,” the dark green haired girl replied. “That and some other nonsense powerful people keep in reserve.” Flora batted at Catnip’s flickering tail absentmindedly then continued, “ Immortal Peoples are fairly unknown at least for us lowly ones,” she said with a small snort, “The term refers to the many different immortal species that occasionally grace us with their presences, like elves and the like. Other than those that seem to choose to mingle with us mortals for whatever reason, Immortal Peoples don’t really interact or even trade with us much,” 

 

“Huh.”

 

“They don’t let mortals into their lands under normal circumstances, and they do a very good job guarding their borders. Everything about their lands they keep secret due to some stupid rule or something, and the stories we do receive quickly get cleaned up as well as whoever told them.” Flora looked a little uncomfortable with the whole thing. “It’s best we don’t talk about it.”

 

They sat together in silence for a while, Catnip migrating further onto Flora’s lap overtime. She didn’t seem to mind, scratching at her ears while staring vaguely into the darkness of the room. 

 

“Welp, sleep time now!” Flora said and hugged Catnip closer, relaxing against the wall. Her breath slowed and she seemed to somehow fall asleep in an instant. Damn, talk about a cheat. She’d love to join her in the sweet embrace of unconsciousness, but stats and stuff. Maybe it’d be slightly interesting. 

 

Name: Catnip

Species: Catkin

Gender: moderately cracked egg. gurl!??!??

Sex: Female

Titles: Otherworlder, Death Defying, Human Shield, Seeker of Lore

Class: Feline Fighter[Rank 0] lvl 102/200 52

Class skills - Feline Instincts lvl 142/200

2nd Class: Blood Mage[Rank 0] lvl 87/200  56

Class skills - Blood Manipulation lvl 125/200

General Skills:

Identify lvl 26/350

Undying lvl 22/100

Pain Resistance lvl 68/100 

Poison Resistance lvl 59/200

Throwing lvl 18/150

Punching lvl 9/150

Claw Slash lvl 36/300

Very Weak Body Enforcement lvl 64/200

Mana Manipulation lvl 123/250

Blood Magic lvl 154/250

Mind Magic Resistance lvl 130/250

Mist Magic Resistance lvl 10/250

NEW! Blood Puppetry[Self] lvl 43/250

NEW! Blood Enforcement lvl 46/250

Stats: 

Health: 380/380

Mana: 478/478

Strength: 201

Speed: 378

Mana regeneration: 39.6 per minute

Health regeneration: 22 per minute

Unspent Stat points: 0 [164 earned - 82 used on Spd, 82 on Mana]←NEW FEATURE!

Available classes:

Thrower[Rank 0]

Brawler[Rank 0]

Feline Fighter[Rank 0] in use

Student[Rank 0]

Blood Mage[Rank 0] in use

NEW! Necromancer[Self][Rank 0]

NEW! Novice Historian[Rank 0]

 

Well, Catnip was still leveling like crazy. Mainly because she was almost exclusively fighting creatures a rank above her, but still. The free stat points were useful too, as was the feature showing how exactly she spent them. A feature that most definitely wasn’t there last time. She had chosen an even split on speed and mana because her entire fighting style required both magic and speed, and things like the [Rank 2] Hunter Crawler and its shots were something she was only barely managing to throw herself in front of for now. What would happen if the party encountered a [Rank 4] or something and it attacked fast enough to hit a party member before she could move to block it? Catnip would never forgive herself if another party member died simply because she couldn’t move fast enough. Although using her mana to perform Blood Puppetry did seem to allow her to move much faster than her speed temporarily, at the cost of a lot of mana, and having to puppet her own body. 

 

Anyway, before fully submitting to the call of slumber within Flora’s arms, Catnip at least needed to look at all the new system descriptions and see if they were interesting in the slightest. 

 

Lore Seeker - 

• A seeker of the truths of this world and the countless events and peoples that shape its past and future. You can retain information considered ‘Lore’ 50% better, and can somewhat intuitively put together events and history even with limited information. 
• An inescapable rabbit hole of information that consumes the lives of all who dare seek it. Ignorance is bliss. Once you know, you’ll never be the same. 

 

Alright, pretty cool. She wondered, would the lore institution work on something like clues in a murder mystery? It’s not exactly the intended use but it would be putting together events using limited information. The last comment was interesting, but Catnip fully embraced the dark abyss of information she may find at any point. She had read some pretty dark shit, this cat girl would be ready for whatever horrifying truths the world may reveal. Hopefully this world’s lore doesn’t get too eldritch though and drive her insane or something, not even she could survive that. 

Blood Puppetry[Self][Rank 0] 

• You have figured out how to use blood manipulation and blood magic to puppet your own body. 25% less mana usage and  25% more control when puppeteering your body with blood, going up by 1% each level. 
• Grim but useful. 

Blood Enforcement [Rank 0]

• A fairly well known way of utilizing blood magic to reinforce the strength and speed of your body. Somewhat more efficient then most body reinforcement magics, due to operating with physical blood present in the body, rather than a nebulous enforcement of mana. 25% less mana usage and 25% more speed and strength when using blood based body reinforcement magic, going up by 1% each level.

 

Neither of these two skills were exactly all that important or anything, but they were nice she guessed. They confirmed that Catnip’s forays into usage of her blood magic and blood manipulation were the right path to be taking, and also just made that specific use of the magic easier and cheaper. Which was obviously good. Catnip assumed that if she switched out her blood mage class, and thus lost her blood manipulation skill, it might somewhat affect these two skills, especially the puppetry since it seemed more based on pure manipulation than blood magic. 

 

Necromancer[self][Rank 0]

• • A peculiar form of necromancy focused entirely on one's own body. Usually only possible to achieve for undead, since living beings could never necromatically manipulate themselves, but through unique circumstances you’ve managed to get it anyway. 

 

• When dead or undead, you can manipulate and enforce your body freely like one would an undead minion. You are also proficient in channeling close range necromantic decay magic, and may drain the health of those that touch you to some degree if you want. 

 

• 3 mana, 3 strength, 1 health per level. 2 free stat points. 

Novice Historian[Rank 0]

• • A non combat class focused on understanding history and the driving factors behind it. 

 

• You can gain limited experience through gaining historical knowledge and have 10% better memory all around. 

 

• 2 mana, 1 health per level. 3 free stat points

 

Both of the classes were pretty interesting. It actually made a lot of sense that Catnip would have unlocked a necromancer based class by now, since she kind of had been manipulating her own dead body quite often recently. Although the class as far as she could tell wasn’t exactly intended for someone like her. It sounded more like a class that would be used by a sapient undead, focusing on upgrading and reinforcing their own undead body, a close range fighter style class for undead creatures. This meant that although it sounded kinda cool, and she totally would have jumped on it if she had a class slot left and were less terrified of the consequences of swapping a class out, she probably wouldn’t use it for now. The class didn’t give any speed as well, and Catnip wouldn’t be able to use a lot of its features when she wasn’t dead. And her regeneration guaranteed she generally didn’t stay dead for all that long. 

 

Novice historian would obviously be a bad idea in a survival situation like this, but Catnip was glad to see there were non combat classes that could earn at least some experience from things other than fighting. She had gotten the sense before that unless explicitly stated otherwise, experience could only be gained through violence, which would really suck for the vast majority of the world. But if there were some non combat classes that granted the ability to receive experience from different things, it wasn’t nearly as bad. 

 

Catnip thought about considering swapping Feline Fighter to Necromancer[Self] for a while, but ultimately decided against it for one main reason. Feline Instinct was kind of carrying her. Feline fighter was far from an ideal class, it was clearly pretty bottom of the barrel beginner, but at the same time Feline Instinct was an absolutely vital skill for her. So many times she would have been too late to save someone without, Dacre would have died on the first shot without Catnip jumping into the way due to the skill. There was guaranteed to be other, better classes that gave similar danger sensing skills, but she didn’t have the luxury of figuring that out right now, and she had to admit the name Feline Fighter also just rolled off the tongue. Plus, at the rate she was leveling, Feline Fighter would be due for ranking up soon, and it could possibly evolve into some interesting things, given that that speed, flexibility, and balance parts of the class were kind of key for current fighting style and had a lot of potential. If she could rank it up into a not so mediocre class, it would probably be worthwhile. Although it was entirely possible Catnip was just kidding herself and trying to avoid dealing with the hassle of switching classes. Eh, whatever, that’s life. Despite Catnip believing that someone as incapable as her should never be trusted with decisions, she unfortunately did have to make them sometimes, and she would have to live with the results. 

 

Flora was snoring at this point, making a rather cute sound and breathing out onto Catnips ear in a way that tickled. Flora was great. It was just a fact. At this point Catnip was somewhat aware that her feelings towards the girl might be slightly more than platonic, but she refused to act on them. She’d much rather ignore their existence and remain friends, because frankly she knew she’d be a shit girlfriend (OMG just CALLED myself GIRLFRIEND in mY HEAD!?!?!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAA). 

 

Also that. The whole girl thing. Catnip had agreed to try to refer to herself as well, her, and to try to be herself at Flora’s insistence, but… It wasn’t that simple. Yes, she had succeeded in the elusive use of she/her pronouns for herself within her own internal monologues, and honesty felt a little bubble of happiness over the whole thing. But it wasn’t that simple. 

 

Catnip had always been very insistent that she wasn’t transgender, because she didn’t deserve to be, because she was fake, because all sorts of reasons. And even if those thought processes had somewhat lost their strength due to Flora’s help and days of referring to herself as a girl, they weren’t gone. It was nice to be a girl, to be referred to as one and accepted as one, but it also felt fake. After all, had she really changed at all? Inside, wasn’t she still the pathetic little manchild that could only dream about being a girl? Was she invading women's spaces somehow by doing this? Public bathrooms weren’t exactly a thing here, but if they were, Catnip knew she’d have to always use the neutral or ugh… men's bathroom, because what if she was somehow intruding and being a pervert? 

 

She didn’t know. For a long time, Catnip had been aware that some beliefs she had about herself were incredibly hypocritical and almost delusional. She wholeheartedly believed the world would be better without scum like her, but she also believed that no one deserved the death penalty and anyone could be redeemed. She just didn’t apply it to herself, regardless of the logic, because she felt like she simply was that horrible and selfish whatever others thought. 

 

The possibility of being transgender just made it all the more confusing. Once again, logic went out the window. She knew intellectually at this point that she exhibited pretty much all the signs of being transgender, but just like with her self worth, she couldn’t really believe it. Because it was them right? Richard, the depressed mess who had no friends, Richard, who had assumed they were cis male for almost all their live and had none of the signs(not really, but it felt like it).

 

Catnip always wanted to make others happy, to put them over herself. Her whole existence revolved around it basically, it’s why she acted as the cheery jokester she did despite the crippling self hatred. People weren’t happy when they knew their friends were suffering, so Catnip came up with a genius idea at some point: Simply hide the fact that you’re suffering! Unfortunately, this strategy was starting to fall apart the more she ended up in actually close relationships with people, since she gained a body that she enjoyed being in and expressed emotions much easier. 

 

Flora knew she was suffering. She wanted Catnip to accept herself, to be the girl she wanted to be. And Catnip following through would make Flora happy, and her happiness was worth any amount of trouble as far as Catnip was concerned. But the fundamental truths of Catnip’s existence were in conflict with all of that. Could she really accept letting go of those truths, even if it was for the sake of someone else's happiness? What if that unlocked the monstrous selfishness and arrogance she only managed to keep a lid on via self hatred? What then?

 

It would be so simple if people just didn’t care about her. If she could actually just straight up die and disappear, or be forgotten or erased from existence. But they did care about her, and she was now literally unable to die. Every moment Catnip indulged herself with enjoying this body, or enjoying using feminine pronouns, was a slip up that could lead to becoming someone who took things for granted that they simply didn’t deserve. Catnip was scared to continue existing as she was now, but she saw no other choice. 

 

Worst of all, there was no chance Flora had forgotten her promise to talk everything out eventually in a week, with Mia present. Flora wouldn’t let her skimp out and claim that they already talked about it, no, in a week, or something like 5 days from now instead, she would expect genuine conversation that forced her to face these things. All because in some stupid fit of momentary relief, Catnip had promised something she truly couldn’t give. And she even had the audacity to drag Mia into the whole thing. Mia deserved all the acceptance and support of her transition, which the conversation would hopefully include, but she didn’t need to get dragged into Catnip’s massive self esteem issues. She really hoped they found a way to help Mia's medical transition at some point, because she still felt quite guilty about getting an instant dream body while Mia was trapped in hers. For now, everyone had been strangely supportive or not commented on the whole thing even if Mia didn’t pass, but if someone did? Catnip could easily see another bout of transphobia shoving her back into the closet. She had to make sure Mia was comfortable and confident enough for that to not happen, or get her that medical transition sooner rather than later. 

 

Flora continued snoring as the night passed by, the steady sounds of her breathing gradually relaxing Catnip despite the mental spiral she had been on for a while now. Cuddling was nice and warm and relaxing, especially as a girl. With nice soft skin and less societal expectations about physical affection, and all that. Catnip was still in a survival situation, if she wanted to address any of this nonsense eventually she had to at least get enough sleep to be able to function in the morning. So um, sleep. 

 

Please body, go to sleep. I’ll give you 5 bucks if you do. So…. sleep and stop thinking already!

…. Catnip straight up forgot that she was unable to sleep with the Undying skill. Nevermind then, cuddle meditation was good enough.