“Finally, someone got rid of that loudmouthed oaf,” the fox-woman said, tittering softly to herself.

“Ai, but ‘tis bad business, capishe?” the fish-man said, smacking his lips and shaking his head.

I eyed the others in the room carefully. The goblin hadn’t had any henchmen inside from what I had seen, so I hoped nobody would mind too much. “Does anybody else have disagreements with me they would like to voice?”

The dark elf walked over and patted me on the shoulder. “Only that you didn’t finish him off sooner! My, that is a fine tool you have there. My name is Natasha, if you woud—”

I edged away from her and tucked my gun down to my holster. “This is mine, and I don’t intend on sharing.”

She eyed me colly from under her bowler hat and twirled the cigarette in her mouth around. “Are you sure? We could come to arrangements… me and my associates have many interesting things to offer. For example…” she reached into his pocket and took out an envelope, then dipped its contents to the table.

White dust. My eyes widened. She’s the narcotics dealer? If she has catnip somewhere in there…

“…We can negotiate on it later,” I said.

The fish-man was fetching a mop to clean off the goblin corpse, and I had dealt with the Natasha for now, which left only the fox-lady. She rose up from her seat and gave me a refined bow.

“Sato Hideko. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, likewise, however…”

I looked around the room awkwardly, then resolved myself. I had a sense that the Hideko would be my safest bet for this next part, as my telepathic connection to Fluffles just wasn’t working yet, probably due to the dungeon being too far away.

“I have no idea how to get home. Can I catch a ride by any chance…?”

 

—

 

“That loathsome, bird-brained, traitourous, cowardly cat!” I cursed as I walked the winding country road, blisters forming on my feet.

I had not in fact received a ride. Only a cool smile and a bit of advice on what direction to head out in, and off I had went, trawling the long country road. A trip of about 20 kilometers by my estimate.

I had a sense of the dungeon’s direction, and of my distance to it, so I knew I was getting there, but it still grated at me. Of course, we were too low level to have a proper teleportation spell yet, so there wasn’t any way Fluffles could have take ne back home anyway, but I still felt resentful.

He could have at least stuck around for company!

However, I wasn’t truly alone, was I? A notification was flashing brightly in my system interface.

I glanced behind my back, but the road was passing by open plains a the moment, and I saw no pursuers or observers. Probably as safe as it can be, really. Let’s give this a go.

I clicked on the notification.

[You have advanced your understanding of what it is to be a catgirl! Your Path of the Catgirl has advanced one step. You may spin the cat wheel once.]

What was this? I had expected a dungeon notification, or maybe something related to my [Café Manager] class, but apparently my new catgirl body had benefits of its own too. My tail waggled at the thought.

I think this is from me talking in nya-speak to that fox lady. I wonder what other secrets of catgirlhood are out there for me to discover?

Idly, I veered from the road to a lonely oak tree, and after double-checking that nobody was watching me, began scratching at it furiously. My pulse quickened as my claws finally got to rip into the wooden park.

I jumped back before I lost myself in the feeling, and let all my excess energy go into my tail, which started swishing behind me rapidly. But no new notification came. I guess it’s not that easy…

Well, nothing to it then.

“Miss system, let’s spin that cat wheel!”

The blue box in front of me vanished in a puff of smoke, and was replaced by wheel split into colourful segments. I grabbed hold of it and gave it a big spin, then sat back to wait, nervous about where the needle would land.

“C’mon, give me something good…”

It spun first fast, then slower, until I was waiting for bated breath at each segment it spun past. Greys for common rewards, light blue for uncommon, red for rare, and orange for legendary.

I took out my gun, stepped closer to the wheel, and held it against the needlepoint.

“If you don’t give me something good…”

The wheel began to spin faster.

“Gogogogogo…” I muttered, as my eyes began to spin along with the wheel. Then, it stopped suddenly, with no slow down at all. I stared at the needle. It was over a red tile.

“Yess!” I shouted, jumping back from the wheel which was morphing back into the normal blue box.

“Don’t disappoint me now!”

[You have received: Forbidden Catgirl Art 002 (Single Use)]

[Forbidden Catgirl Art 002 (Single Use): A single-use scroll to use this devastating secret move, one of a hundred. Warning: Causes extreme psychological damage.]

I blinked at the description, then caught a scroll into my hands. It had a seal on it, but still I felt a great evil seeping from it.

“What in the… that description was absolutely useless!”

Shaking my head, I tucked the scroll into my breast-pocket, managing to only get it halfway in, then continued walking along the road, whistiling to myself as my tail spun behind me in a spiral.

“Country roaaads—”

 

—

 

“Where the fuck are you, Fluffles!” I roared as I stepped back into dungeon territory.

(Oh, good, you’re back,) his telepathic voice answered.

My eyes roamed the place as I finally stepped back through the dungeon’s barrier, but then I got distracted.

More system notifications.

[You have defeated the C-rank green core—Hyypiö!]

[You have gained 50 dungeon points!]

[Fluffles has ascended to a Rank E Cat Core!]

[Floor 2 unlocked!]

[New options available in dungeon shop!]

[Mana generation has increased!]

[Maximum mana has increased!]

[Dungeon Mob cap has increased!]

I froze in place, staring at the avalance of blue screens. Then, hands shaking, I tossed them to the side, revealing the dungeon interface underneath, and locked on to the number proudly displayed among all the others.

[Catgirls: 1/2]

I began running. “Fluffles, we can summon another catgirl, this is amazing, with this—”

My feet dragged to a stop. My eyes blinked. I could sense Fluffles, so I had started running right at him, but where he was…

There was a box. A perfectly square, room-sized wooden box. The surfaces were all that same flat wood that I had been able to summon, except in a much greater size, but there were no windows. Only a cat-sized door right in the middle of the place.

“Fluffles… are you in there?”

I heard his muffled voice from through the cat door. “Mhm, yes. This is most pleasurable.”

Hesitatnly, I crouched, went flat on my stomach and poked my head through the cat-sized door.

It was a perfect box from inside too, except rather dark. And there was a pillar, right in the exact middle of the room, which rose to halfway up to the ceiling. Fluffles lay atop the pillar, more relaxed than a cat had any right to be. I felt his essence filling up the whole room.

He raised his head and looked down at me. “As you can see, I finished the café for you. You were right. This is fantastic.”

“This… is going to need some revisions,” I said, fascinated. Some sense in me suddenly made me want to squish into the narrowest casket possible. Why, with my wood summoning ability…

No, absolutely not, you are not squeezing into a casket, Kati, I chastised myself, then quickly backed away from the room’s entrance before it entranced me more. That was dangerous.

“Get out here Fluffles, we need to summon a new catgirl!”

“Give me 5 more minutes, please.”

“I’m opening a bigger door, and windows!”

"No! Stop! Stop that!"