He was clearly in immense pain, but he still stared back at her with a glare. Catnip went back to trying to remove the stones, still crushing his arm, only for the man to grunt in alarm and try to pull away. 

 

“What are you doing? Trying to finish me while I’m down? Typical Alvarian,” he spat in a gravelly voice. 

 

“No, you idiot, I’m getting you out!” Catnip responded, their regrown tail lashing back and forth in worry about this whole situation. 

 

“Little girl, why would I ever trust you?” he replied harshly, “I’ll get free myself.”

 

“Uh well, good luck with that then,” they said, turning away to look at Flora to make sure she was okay. How could they wake her up quickly? A nice splash of cold water to the face always worked for them personally, but they had no water. Really, any water, cold or not, would work probably. 

 

The man grunted in the background, trying and failing to free himself. 

 

Right. They could slap Flora maybe, do one of those smelly under the nose things maybe. But they didn't want to hurt her and had no clue what chemical it was that woke people up like that. Water… The human body is 80% water… or something. 

 

Of course! Why didn’t Catnip think of this earlier! It was genius! 

 

Catnip picked up a sharp stone and immediately harshly slashed it against their wrist above Flora’s head, splashing blood all over her face. She almost seemed to stir, but she needed another push. 

 

“What the fuck are you doing stupid girl? Are you crazy!” the man shouted in the background. Catnip shushed him briefly and went back to their work.

 

Catnip cut their wrist again, much more harshly, and manipulated the blood out of their veins with magic, dropping it onto her face in one big ball. Perfect. They didn’t really pay any attention to their health points, they wouldn’t die from just this and their regen would cover it soon.

 

Sputtering, Flora’s eyes fluttered open and she coughed up blood harshly. And unfortunately quite loudly. Fortunately in contrast though, it wasn’t her blood, it was Catnip’s blood that had gotten in their mouth. 

 

A few seconds after her rather loud cough, the pulse in the mist almost seemed to stop for a second, but it might have been Catnip’s imagination. Or at least they hoped it was. 

 

“Ugh… fucking.. Shit,” she mumbled, her eyes closed in response to the blood that immediately hit it after she opened them. “Fucking head feels like the worst hangover ever, or how I assume one’d feel like. Never drank that shit myself…” She sounded a little delirious.  

 

“... Flora? I’m here. It’s Catnip,” they said quietly, and shook her a little. She opened her eyes again and really looked at her. 

 

“Catnip… why… why is there blood dripping from your wrist onto my face?” 

 

“I thought you liked blood.”

“I mean yeah, but this is like, what? Self harm isn’t cool girl.” she replied tiredly. “Whatever, this sounds like a typical weird thing you’d do, where are the others at?”

 

“... Your vines have it in them to shift lots of rubble right?” 

 

“Shit,” she said, sitting up. “Let's get to it then. Should we help this guy up first? I don’t really remember who he is but -”

 

“Tch, who needs the help of little girls?” the man responded, still having failed to free himself in any way. It was difficult to do that with an utterly crushed arm after all. 

 

“Guess not then. Any clue where the others are in all this mess?” she asked and gestured to the rest of the remains of the landslide. 

 

An ominous whistling noise could be heard in the distance. Catnip really hoped it was nothing. 

 

Catnip once again pushed their mana to force a blood sight, softly taking Flora’s hand and leading her to where they suspected the rest lay. For the next 20 or so minutes, doing their best to ignore the sounds from the mist, Catnip searched and Flora dug. They mostly ignored where they could sense stagnant blood in the rough shape of a body, it was better not to see those. The landslide could act as their burials, they didn’t have the time to send them off with proper respect now or anytime soon. 

 

The first living person they unearthed was one of Lady Dacre’s maids. Her arm was bent the wrong way, she was covered in bruises and cuts, and her coworkers body lay just underneath her with a snapped neck and terrified look in her eyes, but she was alive. That was something. They didn’t bother to wake her for now. Dacre herself was next, being remarkably unscathed. At this point Catnip was wondering if she didn’t have some sort of luck based skill or title, it had been pretty ridiculous how barely she had escaped being shot by each of the assassins bolts. Either way, she was fine for now, miracle or not. 

 

3 more of the attackers were found alive, two women and a man, each of them having their fall cushioned by the bodies that surrounded them and only seeming to have a few broken bones. Flora glared at them even as they slept, but Catnip convinced her it was in their best interest to help them, despite their hostile relationship. They were stuck in the wilderness together now, it would be stupid to fight each other at this point. And Catnip also just wanted to prevent as many deaths as possible, even if they were those that tried to kill their entire party they refused to let go of their morality. 

 

Catnip had seen it many times in the things she’d read, whether in cultivation novels or isekai. Every protagonist eventually let go of their reservations, and acknowledged that sometimes you had to kill in such a cruel world. Well, Catnip refused that reality, even if it was probably true. If they could, they’d always save a life, only with absolutely no choice would they kill anyone. They didn’t want to become that one young master who slaughtered an entire clan for revenge even though most of them were uninvolved or that isekai hero that killed random bandits because they totally had to even though most bandits were just desperate villagers and they could just be captured and arrested. Catnip liked themself a gray protagonist, but sometimes stories confused ‘intriguing multifaceted gray morality’ with ‘murder hobo’. As fun as murder hobos could be at times, they really didn’t want to be one themself. 

 

That aside, they finally unearthed Mia and Frank about 10 minutes later. And… although they were alive, it wasn’t good. 

 

Mia was missing an entire arm, it somehow being ripped off at some point. They would bleed out soon without help. Fortunately, Catnip was able to use their blood magic to prevent that, utilizing it’s minor healing abilities and also just telling the blood to fuck off and stay in her body,  but she would still likely lose that arm forever. If a high level healer got to someone quick enough, an entire limb could be regrown, but they weren’t anywhere near a high level healer and it would take who knows how long to get out of this mess. Only really rich people could afford someone who could regrow a limb far after it was lost, and none of them were particularly rich.

 

Frank… in addition to bruises and cuts all over, including the long slash on his arm from the fight, a jagged stone had of course shoved itself directly into his face when he fell. Literally ruining both of his eyes. Which they also couldn’t heal. Fuck. He was alive though, right? Right?

 

Unfortunately, during all this searching, they had unwisely let their guard down, the continuous rustling and strange pulsing not seeming to lead to anything for now despite them being quite noisy at this point. 

 

So once again Feline Instincts proved it’s worth as a slight unnerving feeling of being watched suddenly seemed to pulse and something seemed to streak towards the air towards Flora, Catnip tackling her down to safety. The sense flared again, and Catnip rolled with her to the side, Flora making a cute eeping sound in the process. The stone where they had just been sizzled as it was eaten through by what looked like acid, and they both stared out into the mist warrily. They got the sense that that acid really hurt.

 

“I think… I think it was near that vine right there…” Flora whispered to them, preparing her magic. “Some kind of monster plant.”

 

“Uhh… can you kill it quietly before it kills us?” Catnip asked. 

 

They dodged to the side and almost tripped as another glob of acid shot towards them, this time clearly from a bush on the edge of the undergrowth, a strange eerie glow seeming to come from inside it. “Maybe. My plants tend to be pretty big and noisy.”

 

“Wait, lemme try something,” Catnip muttered and once again immediately slashed their wrist, almost causing Flora to jump. They focused their mana into the falling blood, willing it to act like the attack they had done on the ax wielding man earlier and shooting it out at the center of the bush. The blade of blood splattered against the bush and cut into it, an incredibly high pitched noise emanating from the bush. It then seemed to dash away into the undergrowth, Catnip just barely managing to identify it. 

 

Lost Light of the Woods [??][Rank 1]

 

“Phew… hopefully that scared whatever it was off,” Flora whispered, “But Catnip… that way of attack…” she muttered

 

“It was some sort of forest spirit. It’s fine…” Catnip muttered. That thing was [Rank 1], whatever it was, so even if it was a small fry here that got scared off it could probably still beat Catnip themself if it wanted to. They believed Flora was [Rank 1] as well but still, there was a very significant difference between [Rank 0] and [Rank 1], it more than just outleveled Catnip. It would only be a matter of time until some other creature came to check them out.  “Let’s grab everyone and find some shelter before something worse comes.”

 

Needing able bodies to carry people, Flora went to wake up the maid and Dacre due to their lack of major injuries and the fact they weren’t the attackers, while Catnip stuck to the edge of the slope, skirting around the outside of the forest to maybe find a small alcove that was less in the open. They figured it wouldn’t matter if they got jumped by something, being undying. 

 

Luckily, that didn’t happen, and Catnip found a crevice in the rock that led into a small hollow, seemingly empty of any creatures. It took a little crawling and wiggling to get through the gap, but they imagined that this little area was their best bet of being safe at all right now, before they could regroup and figure out just how they were going to survive out here. 

 

By the time they returned, the axe man had managed to free himself and was helping Flora and the maid, Fresia apparently. He grunted in Catnips direction but seemed content to work with them, his crushed arm crudely healed slightly much like the cut on his neck. Silently and carefully, Catnip gestured to Flora and gradually guided her and those helping to carry the remaining unconscious bodies into the small hollow, the crawl space being a bit hard to pull a body through. The mist hummed in the background, the pulse of the woods sounding ever so slightly different than it had earlier. Hopefully that didn’t mean anything. 

 

Eventually, in silent coordination, Flora having warned the others of drawing attention from enemies, every body was dragged through to the hollow, the attackers piled on one side and Mia and Frank on the other, leaving those up sitting in a circle staring at the dusty ground. They decided to let everyone else wake up naturally rather than try to wake them now. 

 

“So…” Catnip eventually said with some hesitation. “Truce?”

 

Dacre and her maid looked at the girl with a bit of shock, but the man just grunted. “Yes, I suppose that would be wise, little girl.” 

 

“Are you ever going to stop calling me little girl?” 

 

“Yeah it’s kind of demeaning,” Flora added. 

 

“You have yet to tell me your name, you see,” he grumbled. “Mine is Sorjorn, if you must know.”

 

“Oh, I was just calling you axe guy in my head. I’m Catnip, like the plant.” 

 

Dacre finally spoke up. “Are we just going to let them get away with the entire y’know, attack and assassination attempt?”

 

“Hmm, it’s inconsequential. Just doing my job, though I admit I liked the chance to spit on you stupid Alvarians,” Sorjorn explained. “I’m much more interested in how that girl is still alive after I chopped off her head.”

 

“Wait what?!” exclaimed Dacre, apparently having not seen it. “I mean, I admit she was pretty impressively unable to die while doing her sworn duty to protect her betters, but beheading?”

 

“Hmm… Yes,” the man rumbled out. 

 

“Oh shit I totally thought that was part of a dream or something,” Flora muttered. “Y’know, Catnip heroically and gloriously sacrificing herself for my sake, then taking a beheading blow? I honestly believed I was dreaming at that point, that one guy’s explosion really knocked me out of it. Or at least I sure hoped I was dreaming at the time.” She looked more than a little sad for a second. “I don’t know what I would do if Catnip died for real and never came back.” 

 

“Oh yeah, I guess that was kind of a big thing for you guys. Almost forgot about it really, didn’t seem particularly important,” Catnip simply said. They were partially lying, saving Flora’s life was incredibly important to them, but they mainly wanted to draw attention away from their miraculous survival. And being beheaded honestly wasn’t that shocking at this point too.

 

“You forgot about it? You forgot you were beheaded!” Dacre exclaimed. “What?” 

 

“Honestly sounds about right coming from you Catnip,” Flora said, nodding. “You did say you were hard to kill.”

 

“Okay, see, it doesn’t really matter, just move on,” Catnip replied in an attempt to brush it aside. “Anyway, why hasn’t Fresia said anything by the way? Ain’t she like a combat maid or something anime like that, seems like she’d know stuff.”

 

“It is not proper to speak when not spoken to as a servant,” she said simply and elegantly. 

 

“Well that’s stupid, we’re in a life and death situation here, who cares about status!”

 

“You what?! You better not get uppity commoner!” Dacre said angrily.

 

“All of you, shut up. You still did not explain your beheading, little girl with the silly name.” 

 

“I just don’t die when I get killed,” they explained. “Simple.”

 

“Oh, okay I’ll try that next time I happen to die,” Flora joked. “No really Catnip, I think we do need to know. It kind of sounds important, and I’m not gonna let my friend deal with dying over and over again all on her own. No wonder you seemed to care so little about slashing your own wrist!”

 

“Oh I guess, well - “

 

“How are you people even functioning so normally and not utterly traumatized,” Dacre interjected with a blank look, seemingly having stopped listening to the conversation. “It’s kind of hitting me now, and my gosh, Carol she- I…” she continued, and sort of curled into herself. Her remaining maid, Fresia, moved up to start rubbing her back. An awkward silence filled the room, Catnip taking the opportunity to not continue their explanation of their Undying skill. For some reason although it was basically impossible to cover it up at this point, they still instinctively wanted to hide it.

 

Catnip felt kind of bad for Dacre, she was just a scared and sheltered girl suddenly thrown into a life or death situation. Cheese was probably the most important part of her life before this whole mess. Actually, on second thought that was a stupid assumption to make that was probably not true at all. Being a noble girl absolutely sucked because your entire life was decided for you, but it was still a different kind of sucky than just straight up life and death fights. Cheese probably wasn’t truly of much importance to her, getting out from under the thumb of the misogynistic and classist noble society was probably more important for her. Unless Dacre was in the spoiled phase where she didn’t realize the reality of her controlled existence yet. 

 

“Uh… are you going to tell us about the whole beheading thing or not,” Flora eventually said, breaking the silence. 

 

“Oh yeah. Yeah so um, I’m like an otherworlder or something, so I got a unique skill ya know, if you catch my drift?” Catnip said, scratching their head. 

 

“Huh,” Flora said, “Those tend to be relatively rare and generally don’t just tell people about it y’know. They’re a prized commodity.” 

 

“Oh good, I wasn’t sure if there even were other otherworlders here,” they responded. 

 

Wiping away her tears, Dacre looked up. “Yes, our glorious country currently has summoned 5 mighty heroes at the behest of the king. Every 20 years since the country’s founding our beloved leaders have used an ancient ritual to summon great warriors to help humanity,” She looked a little prideful. “I even got the opportunity to meet one of the current heroes once!” She boasted. “ They do indeed each have a special skill.”

 

“Huh,” Catnip mumbled with a blank look.

 

“My tutor says that the otherworlder phenomenon is also known to occur at random, with each summoned, transported, or reincarnated individual being significant in some way, sometimes dramatically shaping the history of the world.” Dacre continued, “Information on them is worth its weight in gold, especially since many come from entirely different worlds, although there are a few common worlds.” 

 

“Damn, well wouldn’t y’know,” Catnip mumbled. “Anyway, basically the important bit is my special otherworlder skill is simply the ability to be unable to die. Or well, I do die. I just come back from it rather quickly”

 

“What really?” Flora exclaimed. “Like, what happens if your entire body is erased? What happens if you starve or die of thirst? Do you even age?”

 

Catnip thought about it for a second. “Well, I don’t know what would happen if I was entirely erased, maybe I’d regenerate just from the split apart atoms of my body, but for the starvation I think I would die then regenerate over and over again until I got access to enough food, magic keeping my body going sort of.” Catnip nodded, thinking that that made sense. “And yeah, I don’t age.”

 

“... You were wise to keep that ability a secret, girl. Many would do anything for a power such as that, or even just to study it,” Sojourn spoke. “I’ve heard of a few jobs where others stronger in my profession were paid to retrieve something that might have a similar ability, and they were generally some of the best paying.”

 

“Okay, was this entire thing just a job to you then!” Dacre blew up in anger, gesturing dramatically with her hands. “Your ‘profession’ as what? A dirty mercenary? And assassin? This is my life we’re talking about. Not to mention, those uniforms! Just what were you trying to do!”

 

“Oh right, I forgot about that, your group did kind of frame Verbon with this attack didn’t they,” Flora noted absentmindedly. 

 

“It was nothing personal kid, just another job really. And it’s about time Verbon gets off its ass and beats up you wussy Alvarians,” He grunted, “If this starts a war I’m all for it.”

 

“But… you just framed your own country that you take such pride in?” Dacre said in confusion. “Not to mention so many people would die?”

 

“Hm, it still starts a war I know we’ll win, Alvaria is weak,” Sorjorn continued, “Besides, the attacks themselves delt significant damage on Alvaria before the conflict even begins.” 

 

“Attacks?” Dacre startled in alarm.

“Wait so, lemme get this straight. Yall were paid to start a war and you’re somehow okay with that?” Catnip said confusedly. “I gotta say, I think war is kind of always bad no matter the reason, so like, I strongly disagree with your actions, but we do need to work together for now to survive.”

 

“Indeed,” Sojourn replied sagely. 

 

“Fuck…” Flora grumbled out and sighed, “I hope no one from my hometown gets conscripted for this stupid conflict. I don’t care much for either side but I’m no fan of war either. Sure we can’t somehow get out of here in time to expose the conspiracy?”

 

“Hmm.. It is likely already too late. Besides, I would stop you.” the man said. Catnip thought about saying something like ‘I’d like to see you try’, but thought better of it. They didn’t need antagonism right now.

 

“Did… who else was attacked? Other nobles? Please tell me my friends are okay!” Dacre asked in a desperate tone. “I… Carol and Gorn were bad enough, what’s next?” Fresia started comforting her again, preventing her from falling into tears for now. 

 

“I wouldn’t know. We were only informed about our own target,”

 

“Haah… anyway people, what are we gonna do?” Catnip eventually asked to get them actually on task. “Do any of you have any rations, or have a plan to get us out of a deadly mist filled valley in the wilderness? I doubt we can just walk back up to the road from here.” 

 

Flora shrugged. “I dunno. I think we should ask Frank when he wakes up. He seems like the kind of guy who would know. He probably also has rations, though most were in the carriage.”

 

“Who’s Frank anyway?” Dacre asked weakly.

 

“The leader of the party you hired…lying blinded over there” Catnip replied.

 

“Oh.” 

 

“I vote we sleep and figure it out tomorrow,” Flora suggested. “Gonna be honest I’m really kind of done with today.”

 

“Milady, would that be satisfactory?” Fresia quietly asked Dacre. She nodded in response, and went back to looking sad. 

 

“I thought she couldn’t speak unless spoken to,” Flora noted. 

 

“I must care for Milady above all else,” the maid simply said. “She does not desire to continue her chatter with you rabble, so I must speak for her.”

 

“How do you even know that? Do you read her desires without her saying anything, using just her body language? Actually nevermind that’s probably exactly what any good maid would do.” Catnip said, trailing off. They felt so tired and drained, and a little exasperated about them all being called a rabble, but unfortunately existence continued requiring them to input energy into it. Nobility and its stupid snootiness, they really needed to put a stop to that in this situation.

 

“Also once again I suggest we just drop all the status differences crap. We’re all here now, trying to survive. Status doesn’t mean shit.” Hopefully Dacre and her maid saw their point this time. 

 

Dacre looked like she wanted to protest for a second, before slumping down back into sadness. They should really ask her first name at some point regardless of proper noble conduct. 

 

“... Alright. We will speak more in the morning. Who will keep watch?” Sorjorn said.

 

“I will. I don’t sleep due to my skill.” 

“Wait but what about that time you snuggled with me to bed?” Flora said questioningly.

 

“I just achieved a zen cuddle state.”

 

“Oh. Okay. Too bad about the watch thing, I was looking forward to sleeping with you tonight.” she replied. There was no way she meant anything by it, but they almost spat in surprise at her unintentional innuendo. 

 

“Phrasing. Also who says I can’t keep watch to make sure nothing comes in here while also snuggling up against you?” 

 

“Ohhh, genius.” 

 

And so that’s what they did. After their talk, Sorjorn went over to his side and sat grimly next to the unconscious bodies of his comrades, somehow managing to sleep like that. Dacre was guided over towards the back of the cave-like area by Fresia, who did her best to make the area comfortable and hugged her lady to sleep, probably something that would be against her station, maybe she really was convinced to give up the status thing for now. Catnip of course snuggled up to Flora, staring out towards the small gap where they entered the alcove, making sure nothing came through. 

 

“Catnip. We’ll talk more later about your skill and otherworlder status,” Flora said from their embrace as the others drifted off to sleep. “You’ve clearly been bottling a lot up, and your willingness to die and injure yourself is very concerning.” She shifted a bit against Catnip, playing with their tail briefly, and stared into their eyes dramatically. “I want to be there for you. I won’t let you hurt yourself thoughtlessly. See you in the morning.” She was out like a light a second later. 

 

The catgirl sighed, flicking her ears and enjoying Flora’s warmth despite being worried by her last words. Once again, someone was caring about them when it was better off they didn’t, Flora was going to end up burdened by them if they weren’t careful. But… they still appreciated it, even if it unsettled them. 

 

The mist drifted in through the crevice slightly, swirling and then receding. With silence returned, the pulse of the forest did too, and throughout the night small screeching sounds could be heard. This was gonna be a mess to get out of. 

 

At least they thought the atmosphere of this whole area was cool in a kind of spooky way!