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Chapter 17: Cat and Mouse

“Our Party name huh…”Everyone started trying to come up with names that would fit, some were better,

“How about the CEF Brigade? It could be the initials of our names?” suggested Emi

Some were not so good…

“Party A. Its simple and easy to remember,” added Foxy hopefully.

However we couldn’t decide on a name until I had remembered the gift I had given Emi,

“What about Yin and Yang?”

“Where does Yin and Yang come from?” Emi asked curiously.

“Its from a far off land,” I answered vaguely, “It means to have balance, balancing out the good with the evil in a constant battle for which one would be better.”

“That actually sounds pretty good! Alright then what do you think Foxy?”

Foxy nodded in agreement perhaps disappointed we didn’t go with her suggestion of Party A.

I told Greta our name and she made it official, it was now on all our Status Tags. Greta knowing that we were fairly knew at this asked if we knew the adventurer rank system and none of us did so she started to give an introduction,

“At its simplest it is a system to judge the quality of an adventurer, everyone starts at Rank 1, exceptions. Through doing requests given by the Adventurer’s Guild and other important entities you can level up. The leveling system is fairly straightforward. Starting from ranks 1 to 10 you need to do 5 missions of the same level to level up. Do you guys understand this so far?”

We nodded and gestured to go on.

“However you can speed up the process by doing missions that are one rank higher than your current rank which will give you the equivalent of two missions. If you find the missions are currently too hard for you then you can do missions are easier but they will only account for half a mission. This means if you do a mission that is two ranks higher than your current class you will get the equivalent of 4 missions in if you complete it. Past rank 10 it differs but for now that should start you off. Do you have any other questions?”

“No thank you Greta,” I smiled and replied.

“Good why don’t you check out the billboards in on the pillar over there and try to get one of the Rank 1 missions to let you understand the basics of it.”

“Thanks we will do that.”

We approached the board and saw a great many different types of missions, from slaying dragons (rank 10) to protecting merchants (rank 7) to even babysitting babies (rank 1). They were all of varying difficulty. We decided on a find a missing cat request as it wouldn’t be too boring or too hard as our first mission.

Emi started reading off the request,

“Help find our poor kitty that went missing yesterday. She is a Tortoiseshell cat that responds to the name Mirabella and has distinctive orange gloved paws. Sounds like a fairly straightforward quest right guys?”

“Yeah sounds like it should be pretty easy,” responded Foxy.

“As long as work together we should be able to find and corner the cat.”

So began the rather arduous search for the missing kitty. We asked many different people if they had heard of the cat in the description and the picture provided. But none had seen a cat like that.

We then started looking at the more deserted parts of town to see if they were lurking there way from the crowds but we had no luck. It was soon night fall and we still hadn’t been able to spot the cat anywhere.

“Lets just pick a different mission.” I was thinking a more straightforward mission could be easier to complete. But Emi vehemently protested,

“No we’ve got to find the cat. The cat could be scared, it would be so horrible if the cat wouldn’t be reunited with their owner. I would imagine the cat’s owner would be very very sad. We need to find it.”

I was surprised at the intensity that Emi suddenly blurted out with but Foxy uncharacteristically smiled, nodded and said,

“Of course we can we’ll find that kitten.”

“Did you have a kitten when you were younger?” I asked Emi.

“Yeah and one day it was gone. I was so heartbroken and I cried for ages after. It’s a little embarrassing but I really did care for the cat. We need to find that cat before the cat’s owner feels the same way.”

“Alright then we will.” I patted Emi’s head like I would a dog as I thought it would comfort her. She seemed to blush but let continue. Foxy on the other hand narrowed her eyes, so I instinctively put my hand away. We continued to search for it, but we had no luck.

We decided to stop for a bit and have our takeaway dinner that we had bought discounted from a shop that was just about to close and we sat underneath a tree near the wishing well because it was a nice cool night. The dinner was immensely satisfying particularly and nice to have on such a cool night, it had fresh citrus flavors that mixed well with the gamier mutton. The mutton was accompanied by some summer vegetables that complemented the heavier mutton by cutting through with some more sour notes. As I lay back relaxing on the ground after such a hearty meal I spotted a cat in the tree. With the distinctive orange gloved paws and tortoiseshell cat that had been looking for all day.

I immediately pointed and got the other people’s attention by whispering quietly, “Look there’s our cat we’ve been looking for.”

As I was about to set up a plan to somehow try and catch the cat, I suddenly felt a gust of wind and the next thing I knew I saw a blue flash suddenly pass me. In an instant Foxy had somehow managed to run up the tree and somehow catch the cat by surprise. Both Emi and I were in awe of the feat Foxy displayed with the athleticism that I could only hope for.

I was however a bit jealous as I thought I could have caught the cat for Emi as it had meant a lot to her. Emi instead ran up to Foxy and hugged her however the cat was still in Foxy’s arms so it was a rather comical display of a cat being squashed between two growing girls.

I definitely felt something tug at my heart but I decided to push it away and allow Foxy the spotlight for this one. Emi seemed rather happy and was cuddling the kitten all the way to the Adventurer’s Guild. Afterwards Emi thanked Foxy,

“Thanks Foxy I really appreciate that you believed in me and caught the cat.”

We went back up to the lodging and this time I was able to bargain a couch from the lodging’s front desk to use to sleep on so I fell asleep rather more quickly than I had the previous night. I heard a bit of whispering in the night but had been so tired from today’s activities that I faded to sleep no longer paying any attentions to the world.

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