Catgirl System

A soft breeze hit my face. I woke up mid-snore, slowly and groggily, raising a heavy head from the sturdy branch of an oak tree. I’d been sleeping the way jaguars do, with one front leg and a tail hanging down. The earth was far below—but just a jump away, of course.

I opened my eyes, and…just as quickly closed them again.

…

Wait a second…

My head being heavy, that wasn’t just an illusion. It was actually heavier. And my ears were floppier. And my leg, the one hanging down past the branch, felt…ungainly?

Oh no.

I’d used Morph in my sleep?!

Just as soon as I realized it, I un-Morphed—like my instinctual fear-adrenaline response made the power short-circuit.

Poof! A brief flash followed by a sauna’s worth of steam billowed around me. More than a few birds in the area fluttered off in surprise.

My panic hadn’t ended. Sure, I was back in my normal cat body—one I was only just getting used to—but the fact that I’d sleep-activated one of my Traits somehow? I couldn’t keep doing that! For multiple reasons, but particularly because it would drain SP! Right? Or was draining SP the opposite of what it did? I couldn’t remember every little thing!

I thought desperately, Stats!

EXP: 5% (16/300)

HP: 100% (40/40)
SP: 33% (10/30)

NNNOOOOO!

At least this confirmed some good news: going to sleep had restored my HP back to perfect. I was sure it would’ve restored my SP too, but I had to take what I could get.

I most definitely appreciated the gains. Before I’d gone to sleep last night, I did a lot of wandering. And running. And wishing I was strong enough to just claw all my foes away.

This tree branch here wasn’t the first good one I found. I got chased away from the first tree I scouted out by—that’s right—more squirrels, and spotted a family of possums on another. Then I had to give up ten more… Who knew how long I could call this one “mine?”

Hopefully this branch was good luck, though, since I hadn’t been bothered for my whole night’s sleep.

Sadly, when I’d actually managed to secure the branch, the sun was already beginning to rise.

Cats do famously take catnaps, but somehow I was still groggy from, uh, being reborn in another world. Plus, with these weird humanoid powers, what if I had to sleep longer hours, and sleep through them all at once? It was something to think about (and shiver at).

I needed something to take my mind off of this.

Hunting? Foraging? No, that didn’t seem so pressing yet. I was still full from last ni—

Last night! Okay, definitely don’t think about that one! Stay away from Reed’s weird magical place unless really, truly desperate for milk and food!!

That train of thought did bring me back to another, more important line: the one involving the Quest and the Map.

…Map?

Current Location: Taipha’s Home Base (S.C3)

Note: Your Player Marker is currently blocking the location Taipha’s Tree.

Oh, cool!

A grid of squares unfolded in my vision. Six squares across, five down. Like the grids in many, many human games that I naturally had never played and proudly had no interest in.

It clicked in my mind that the “(S.3C)” part was referring to the only square on the grid that had been filled in: Square 3C. I also managed to piece that together with the fact that the Quest notification I’d gotten last night said I’d explored 3 percent of the Vencian Wood. Because the number three…kind of looked like thirty. The table had thirty squares. I did not know math.

The Map was fun, and it’d probably come in handy, but it wasn’t incredibly detailed. I could see that place called Reed’s Cabin, and I could see a little arrow thingy with a cat head on it marking my own location, but no hazards: no ridges, no cliffs, and definitely not deadly squirrel or raccoon nests. Was it mainly a way to track my progress in that Quest thing?

…Huh. Weird.

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata

The Map’s got other features. Hang tight and Evolve.

Good to know, but I mainly was curious about the Quest…

Like what you get from it?

I’d get stuff from it?

Yeah. Just a boatload of Experience. Plus a holy relic.

H-how much Experience?

Hmm, let’s see… Enough to give you twenty, maybe thirty Levels.

I salivated.

Suddenly, running around the whole entire forest was the only thing on my mind. I hurtled down from my tree, landed effortlessly on my feet, and gave the tree trunk a good rub with my scent. It was about time I started making a name for myself around here.

Then I took a look around. It was a breezy day, but not at all a cold one. Caterpillar clouds crawled along the sky in a big armada. They had a greenish tint to them. I wondered whether that meant something or was just a thing that clouds did over the Vencian Wood.

Now. Onward!

Wait. Training!

If I was going to explore, I needed to get both stealthier and stronger. Fortunately, there did exist such a thing as easy prey: the purple beetles.

Crouching low in the grass, I wove my way around the trees, searching for signs of my favorite kill…and my only kill. Several minutes later, I found a trail of them running down maple bark, plus a few more bebeetled trees nearby.

This time, I’d test my mettle by attacking them without Swipe. After that Level-Up and my Evolution, I was feeling pretty limber and maybe a little cocky. That wasn’t the only reason I went without the Skill, though. It hadn’t escaped my notice that after my Level-Up, Swipe cost more SP to use, going from 5 to 10. Probably because it was stronger now. So while I could use Swipe more times now, I couldn’t fling Swipes off willy-nilly. And after my sleep Morph, I only had enough SP for a single move.

Luckily, the beetles weren’t fast or smart enough to get a chance to fight me back thanks to my cheesy strategy.

And as I swatted them down, I pumped myself up. You’re doing great, Taipha! Don’t get discouraged! Don’t get bored! They’re not worth much, but every bit of Experience counts!

Eventually, I scanned the corpses on the ground. One hundred and sixty-seven beetles.

Four trees.

Aching front legs.

And my Experience? Let’s see how far that EXP bar’s gone!

EXP: 84% (253/300)

Uh…

Timidly, I looked around. No more beetles in sight.

My stomach made the slightest rumble. Soon I’d have to get to eating these bug corpses.

Not only were these beetles going to taste downright terrible compared to the stew I’d eaten last night—thanks to my higher Experience needs, each beetle was only worth half of what it’d been worth before!

And who knew when I was going to Evolve into one of those supposed stronger forms?

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata

Just get to Level 8.

Oh yeah! Wait, Level 8?! That was like an eternity away!

Or maybe you’re just impatient?

Goddesses had no idea. They weren’t the ones who had to suffer through weird reincarnations—or, for that matter, live on the streets.

You may be surprised, Taipha. I have lived countless lives over the course of centuries…

(Just kidding, I’ve spent basically my whole existence in a cloud palace.)

Get outta here! I swatted the box away, and it (not “she”; the box was not actually a deity, as I finally realized) politely left.

I nibbled on my niblets, eyes squinted with irritation. Man, when she was “unavailable,” she was gone, but when she felt like being here, she couldn’t shut up. Having her around for a few seconds was alright, just to tell me what I needed to know, but a whole conversation…

Well, clearly I’d have to hunt something else, and as soon as I had that thought, that something passed right by my face.

A sparkling green dragonfly!

I waggled my butt (it gets me ready for the hunt, don’t make fun) and took off running.

Confidence welled up in me and burst like a firecracker. I lost track of time, my surroundings, everything but my target. Locking my eyes on that green streak, I knew that however fast it was, it wasn’t faster than me.

Blurs of plant life raced by, and the sounds of startled animals washed off and away like water off a duck’s back. No fear, no doubt, no sighs at the growing pain in my pumping legs. Just determination.

When the moment was right, I jumped.

Swipe!

SP: 0% (0/30)

My claw soared through the air, headed for the dragonfly—who dipped at the last moment.

Shoot.

Plop.

Overeager.

I landed face-first in the grass, taking minor damage. Ow. Soft but not soft enough.

HP: 98% (39/40)

As I shook myself off, I watched that dragonfly take off…and felt the full force of my legs newly aching. All the running of last night caught up to me, merged with the new day, and made my body throb.

Well, that was an obvious failure…

New Area!

…wait, really?

I looked around and, by all accounts, the box was right. Was I really in the forest anymore? I wasn’t even in a clearing. I was in full-fledged plains.

The trees were spaced further apart here, leaving ample space for grass to waft in the wind. And there were more smatterings of flowers, and where they grew, they seemed to stack on top of each other, hungry for life. Purple-and-red pansies bloomed by my feet, towered over by broad, sombrero-like daisies and strange flowers that looked a little like snapdragons and a little like palm trees. All waving in beautiful harmony whenever a breeze blew through.

Wherever the flowers were, the hills smelled like honey. While the world seemed to be in a cool, breezy summer now, I promised myself never to come here during the height of spring. I’d be sneezing forever.

I looked into the sky, searching for the sun. I was closer to it now…I had run east.

How the heck far east was I?

Current Location: ??? (S.D3)

Ah, okay, Not that far into this new area at all. Wow, that dragonfly had taken me way farther from home than I would’ve ever guessed. My Wisdom was…probably going down a point from that.

Maybe this sudden journey was a blessing in disguise, though. Plus, I had a day to kill, pun intended.

Oho, let me revise that statement. I had a rabbit to kill, a tannish-brown one standing right in front of me and crinkling their little rabbit nose. Poor thing must not have known that cats are omnivores, or that this one had recently enjoyed rabbit stew.

Of course I had no Swipes on me, but when nature calls like that, you answer.

I decided to stand perfectly still (clearly my jump-in-head-on strategy wasn’t working today) and let the rabbit sniff at me.

Then I—

Treasure Detected!
Check your Map for the location.

And now I was blind! Thank you for sharing at this opportune time!

Nonetheless, in one swift movement, I zoomed forward, both paws aiming for the rabbit’s sides. But the rabbit ducked underneath and bolted as the box blinked out, and all that was left hanging in midair—

Were delicate streaks of beaded blood.

As the rabbit hopped away and I fell on all fours again, I marveled at this sign, however small, of my growing power.

I let this rabbit go free, but the next one, I assured myself, wouldn’t get off so easy. In my head, I was already planning better strategies for the next rabbit to come by: better angles to jump from, better ways to use my claws to pin the rabbit rather than simply scratch them.

I took a quick look around. The air was fresh and open and free of hawks, and the hills were quiet. No better hiding places I could see than the clumps of flowers dotted here and there. So I locked onto a nearby flower patch, wiped the rabbit blood off my claws using some tissue-quality petals, crouched low, and…

Z-zip!

Running didn’t make that kind of sound. If only it did.