Ero-Game: Power and Sword

I went to two other spots the cat might be with no luck. I chewed on a sandwich I bought from a convenience store as I walked around the witch's neighborhood looking for the cat. I walked around till sunset looking for the cat. Finally, I gave up for the day. I caught a rickshaw and went back to the inn.

"Where were you? What were you doing all day?" My nagging Garth was there to greet me.

"I was looking for a cat." I sat down for dinner.

"A cat?"

"Yeah. Did you register us as adventurers as I asked you?"

"Yeah." He reached in his pocket and pulled out the cards. There was the ID card I gave him and the Adventurer ID card. It was similar to my ID card except for an additional field called: rank. I was F-rank. "This is mine." Garth showed me his adventurer card. It had the same rank as mine.

"Good. Tomorrow you'll help me look for the cat."

"A cat?" Garth was still confused.

I took out the poster the witch had plastered all over the place. "This is the cat we're looking for."

"Oh, I saw those posters."

"Okay. I'll tell you where to look." I wanted to show him the places on a map, but unfortunately, maps were rare, especially maps with details about each street. So I took out a piece of paper and a pencil. "This is the inn..." I explained to him where the witch's house was and the places we'd have to look. I drew it as best as I could. I explained all the places the cat could be. "I'll search these spots here..." I pointed out spots east of the witch's house, where the cat was more likely to show. "You'll search here and here..." I pointed out places west of the witch's house for him. "When you spot the tig- cat, don't approach it. Also, we'll go to a magic shop tomorrow morning and buy a message scroll. You need to message me when you spot the cat. Under no circumstances are you to approach it. Got that?"

"But why are we trying to find this cat?"

"Can't you see what it says at the bottom?" I showed him the poster again. "They'll give a reward."

"Ahh... I guess, but is that worth it."

"Trust me, I have an instinct for these things." Game knowledge from my previous life is kind of an instinct, right?

***

Next day.

We went to the magic shop first and bought two message scrolls. Then we went to the witch's neighborhood and split up.

"So remember, message me, and don't approach the tig- cat."

"Okay." He nodded and went west. I went east.

I had added many locations on a whim since I didn't know exactly where the cat could be hiding. Out of all the times I'd played the game, I'd only looked for the cat 3 times. I didn't remember the exact spots I'd found the cat in or where the cat ran to or where it was found, etc. So a lot of it was guessing based on my memory of the location. And also my estimation of what cats liked. 

3 hours later, I heard Garth's screaming voice in my head. "It's a tiger! It's a tiger!" And I sighed and clenched my fist, wanting to electrocute him.

***

3 hours ago.

"Why are we looking for a stupid cat?" Garth walked down the road kicking away a stone in his path. "We should do quests and increase our rank. Then more men will want to support you. What's she thinking doing stupid things like this." He looked at the map he got from her. "I guess I'll go to this place first, as she said." He went to the spot she told him about, and just as she'd described, it was an unfinished construction zone.

"What happened here?" He wondered, talking to himself. "Did they just abandon the construction?" That was precisely what'd happened. A noble had stopped the construction in the capital and decided to build the home in Port Town. Garth walked around the construction zone and looked at the nooks and crannies his master had told him to look at. There was no cat. He crossed out that location and went to the next one.

After crossing out 3 locations, the 4th gave the bounty. There was the cat bathing in the sun on a sundial. "Why shouldn't I approach it?" He asked, and no one answered. "It's just a cute cat." He walked up to it without reservation and picked up the cute cat. "Aren't you cute?" He rubbed his face against it. "Why can't I pick you up? Huh? Why coon't I peeck you up?" He babied the cat. It flared its cute nostrils and tried to scratch him. He held the cat at a distance like a peeing baby and giggled. "Hehehehe... Fiesty, aren't you. Did you scratch Sherrie? Is she afraid of you?" Then it began to transform. It got bigger and bigger till he realized something was wrong and let the cat go. It was the size of a tiger!

"Grrr!" It growled.

Then Garth began to run. He activated the message scroll as quickly as possible and screamed for help!

***

"Okay, where are you now?" I asked him as I approached his location.

"I'm still hiding in the construction area." I heard his whisper in my mind. "The tiger's still circling around trying to kill me."

"Don't worry, it probably just wants to smack you in the head, like I want to right now."

"Sheeerriiie~ I heard him cry in my head."

"Calm the fuck down, will you. I'm almost there."

I was running at top speed while listening to Garth cry in my head.

I really needed to exercise more. I felt tired after 5 minutes. Panting and sweating, I reached the abandoned construction zone. The tiger was circling around the unbuilt house. I took out a bowl and the spider's milk. I poured out a quarter of it into the bowl.

Then I approached the tiger gently with the bowl in one hand and my other hand raised. "I come in peace." I put the bowl down and stood beside it. "Please work. Have some milk, little guy." Smelling the milk, the tiger came close and looked at the bowl. Then shrunk and started lapping up the milk. "Woo~" I let out a big sigh of relief. I gently petted the cat and told it, "I'm going to take you back to your mama, okay." Garth came out of the little hole he was hiding in and came beside me.

I was squatted beside the cat, petting it. When he got close enough, I got up and smacked him in the head. "I told you not to approach it," I grunted at him.

"That hurt." He said, rubbing his head. "But- but- but- You didn't tell me it'd turn into a tiger. You didn't tell me." He had a point, I realized. I could've told him that, and then maybe he wouldn't have gone close to it. I had no reason not to tell him. I had simply hidden it because I didn't want to spend time explaining it to him.

I sighed. "Fine. Well, I'm glad you're safe."

"I won't disobey you again." He bowed to me apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"Okay, fine." I squatted down again and gently picked up the cat. It had already drank all the milk and was meowing for more. "So, now you're meowing, huh? Well, if you're good, I'll give you some more."

"Meow!"

***

The cat behaved the whole way to the witch's house. I gave it some more spider's milk when I got there. When it was done drinking the milk, I picked it up and knocked on the witch's door.

"What kind of reward do you think we'll get?" Garth asked.

"Hmm. Let's see." I remembered it would at least be in the legendary rank. There were Bronze, Silver, Gold, Rare, World, Relic, Legendary, God, and Universe rank items. Rare would already be good for me right now and would make up for every penny I spent on the spider's milk.

The witch opened the door. "Yes? Oh, you found my cat."

"Yes." I smiled and handed her her cat.

"Thank you." She took the cat from my hands. "Come on in. I'll make some tea."

"Don't mind if we do," I said and went inside. Garth followed behind me.

We sat on a plush couch and waited for the tea to be dished out. The witch sat across from us and made water appear with the snap of her finger. Then cups floated into the room from the kitchen. I tried using [look-a-look] on her, and everything came up as question marks. I swallowed hard. She had no real plot in the game other than as this easter egg. But she must be one of the strongest people in the world, I'd think. She was a hidden tiger for the entire game. It's like the developers just made her for fun and gave her a high level. Not that this was the game anymore. She probably has a back story of her own. Should I prod her? Will it give me unknown quests that I'd never heard about in the game? Forget it; best not to mess with things I don't know.

The water boiled in the air, and tea leaves came from the kitchen. They mixed in the air, and she perfectly poured enough into our cups. Milk and sugar floated in from the kitchen too. "Add how much ever you want."

"Thank you," Garth added sugar and milk to his tea.

"Yes, thank you," I said a second later. I added only sugar. I was lactose intolerant in my past life, so it'd just become a habit not to add any milk.

"Right, I promised a reward for finding my Momo."

I nodded. "Yeah." I took a sip of the tea.

"So, who should I give my reward to?" She asked with a smile.

Would it be different if I said 'both?' Again, I didn't take any chances and went with the answer I knew. If this was the game, the options would appear below her, and I would've been able to easily choose.

I'll have to try out options that wouldn't have been possible in the game with some quests later, but for now, "You can give it to me. I did most of the work anyway, right, Garth?"

"Right." He put his head down.

"See." I smiled at the witch.

"Alright, that sounds good to me." She smiled. "Why don't you come with me." She got up and started walking up the stairs. I quickly put down the teacup and followed her.

Things were coming back to me now. It was just as in the game. Even the photos and paintings on the wall.

Upstairs the witch opened a door, and we stepped in. This room alone was much bigger than the entire house from the outside. Weapons, artifacts, art pieces, talismans, statues, strange indescribable things, and more. I followed her. Is she some kind of ancient being protecting this place? So many questions...

She led me to a hall of safes. "Ah, I should be able to give you something from in here." she spun the combination wheel in record speed while throwing in some magic passwords too. A moment later, with a tick the safe came open. "Come on in." She pushed open the safe and welcomed me in. "You can pick any one thing from here."

"Thank you," I said and used [look-a-look] on all the items. Every item had question marks blocking parts of its information. Thankfully I was at least able to read the descriptions and gain some understanding of the items' abilities. They were all legendary rank, just as I had remembered.

"You don't seem surprised to see all this. Most people I've shown this to... Well, the reactions were unique."

"Oh, I am surprised. I'm just good at hiding it, I guess. Hehehe." I scratched my head. "So you've shown this to other people?" How many people have seen this, I wonder?

"Oh, it's been a while since I've shown it to anyone. It's mostly kids, you know, who'd helped me get my cute momo. He likes to play hide and seek sometimes."

"Right." I nodded. Anyone who had this much power had to be a little bit crazy.

I looked around at the hundreds of items in the room. I'd need days just to read through each description. So I asked, "What would you recommend? Out of these Items." She's rewarding me with a legendary item, so there's no way she'd recommend anything bad. Plus, is there even a way to recommend a bad item from this room? Everything looked good.

"Hmm." She rubbed her chin and thought about it. "You're a magician, correct? And a new one at that, from what I can tell." I felt almost naked under her gaze. "Let's see. What would be good." She opened a glass case and took out a necklace. Then opened another glass case and took out a ring. Then she took down a childishly colorful hammer from the wall. "Pick one of these. Any one of these will be perfect for a future magician." I used [look-a-look] and read through the 3 descriptions. At the end of the necklace hung a small dirty-gold-colored shield-shaped legendary item. The general description was for a type of intelligent shield. It protected you from all kinds of things. Not everything could be read, but generally, it was the perfect shield for a magician. This would be a great substitute for [barrier].

The ring was some kind of strengthening ring. It seemed I could become as strong as a martial class while wearing it. A lot of its parts were hidden too.

The hammer was for a production-type magician. It was hard to understand from the description, but it could create Rare rank items. Of course, I'd need the ingredients for those Rare rank items.

All of them were good, just as I suspected. It was a shame I could only pick one. I sat on the floor and thought about it for a good 10 minutes while scratching my head. The witch floated in the air and watched me with a smile. In the game, when I ran into this easter egg, 2 times I was playing the martial type, and the one time I ran into it as a magician, I was under a curse and was lucky to find the cure in this room. That item wasn't necessary for the current me, and that's why she didn't recommend it.

With the memory of the curse again fresh in my mind, I picked the necklace with the golden shield pendant. Its real name was: Shield of Andromeda. It could protect me not just from physical harm but also from curses and other ailments.

"I'll take this," I said and put it around my neck. I stood up and stood in front of the mirror in the room. It looked good on me.

As I was admiring my good looks and the new necklace, the witch pulled me away from the mirror. "Don't stand in front of that." She said just as a friendly man in a top hat appeared in the mirror waving to me.

"Hello!" The man cheerfully said.

"You can go away. She doesn't want to talk to you." The witch said as she pulled me out of the room/safe. Then she closed the safe and led me out of the hall of rare items.

***

"You're back," Garth said when he saw me coming down the stairs. The cat was on his lap, and he'd become good friends with it.

"Yeah, let's go. It's almost lunch. We'll go to a cafe, I know."

"Oh, okay. What did you get." The necklace was hidden in my shirt. I pulled it out and showed it to him. "Oh, ah... It's pretty." This idiot had no idea how valuable this thing was. I shook my head and ignored him.

"Thanks again, then we'll be heading off," I told the friendly witch.

"No, no, thank you for finding my cat." She said with a gentle smile.

I had a lot of questions, but that didn't matter.

We left the witch's residence and took a rickshaw to the cafe I've been meaning to go to ever since I came to the capital. It was the quest I planned to do first in the capital.

The rickshaw driver stopped in front of the poor-looking cafe.

"This?" My butler, Garth, immediately seemed to look down on the cafe. "I think the inn would be better than this master."

"Come on, they have good food." Technically I had no idea since I had only eaten their food in the game.

In the game, I had run into this quest while doing another quest. The other quest turned out to have a horrible reward, but thankfully I found this quest. For that quest, I came into this cafe regularly each day. After spending a few days in this cafe, the waiter, a young man, opened up about his sick mother. 

Making the cure, the first time around, was a long process. Finding the recipe, the ingredients, etc. But I've already done all that. Now I just needed to become friendly enough with the waiter so he'd open up about his sick mother.

I walked into the cafe and took a seat.

Garth complained some more. "It looks just as bad on the inside. My chair wobbles."

"Will you shut up," I told him.

The beautiful young man came to us and asked what we wanted. I looked up at his tall blond hair, purple eyes, and sad face. He's sad because of his sick mother. He's been working like a good son to support her.

"What would you recommend for lunch?" I asked.

"We have sandwiches, burgers, salad, wrap-"

"Give me a Reuben Sandwich." Garth interrupted him and told him what he wanted. He seemed annoyed by the whole shop. Maybe I should electrocute him.

***

After having lunch, Garth came around.

It turned out the food was great after all.