Starting from Zero Vol 4 Chapter 138

Chapter 138: The Monster Cat

I tried to soothe Rose for quite some time before she finally left the room with my parents, still crying a bit. Now I'm all alone again. Staying in the liquid means I don't have to spend much energy. I don't feel sleepy at all.

Bored, I tried to use the brainwave receivers to control random machines in the room for fun. Father told me before that every device in Dragon Fate can be operated in this way.

I went into the room camera and positioned it at myself, so I can get a view of my body from the outside.

This is a bad idea.

Without any bones to support, my body now shrank into an ugly lump of meat due to the natural contraction force of my muscles. I look like an extremely fat dwarf only 0.7 meter in height. d.a.m.n, now I know why Rose wouldn't stop crying.

I zoomed the camera towards my head. When I discovered my condition back at the hotel my eyes are pale red, now they have a color of deep purple, with long, vertical cat-style pupils. Anyone would call me a monster now.

Next, I tried out the diagnostic instruments. After watching the readings I noticed that I can actively quicken my brainwave to 50+ times faster than normal brains!

I used the EEG to record my brainwave and slowly tune up my brain to watch the change in results. Before I can reach my limit though, I suddenly lost connection with everything.

I can still feel the receivers attached on my head working. So...My best guess is that the machines can no longer react to my brainwave because it became too fast. I then lowered it back down. When I hit x50 speed again, the signals of machines also came back, which proved my idea.

The door of the room suddenly began to move up. Our lab rooms all use automatic shutter doors that rise into the upper door frame when someone's nearby, but somehow the door in my view is moving really slow. My father and a bunch of researchers ducked under the door before it can fully open and went in here...slowly. What are they doing?

My father's first action is to come over to my chamber and knock on the gla.s.s, while yelling something I can't hear. The other people went into their respective positions, also slowly, and started operating the machines. One of them accidentally knocked the microphone off the desk. I looked at the microphone SLOWLY drop to the floor and finally realized what's going on.

Of course we're not on the moon, so the object is falling slowly because...my mind is faster. When I tuned my brainwave function speed to 50 times above normal, I also caused my own timeline to flow 50 times faster than everyone else. That's why they seems so slow.

And I'm not feeling any excitement out of this. Instead, I immediately realized I did something stupid, so I quickly typed on the screen:

"Lower the liquid temperature by 10 degrees! Quickly!"

I finally recovered to normal speed. Now the other people are moving around just alright. The researchers don't know what I'm trying to do but they still did as told.

Father remembered that I can’t hear him by voice so he grabbed the microphone.

"Hey son. You okay? What in the world happened just now?"

I'm feeling...dazed. This is the same feeling when you catch a bad cold and serious fever.

"It's okay. I was trying something out, and I think I overdid it a bit."

"What did you try?? Our monitor told us that your brainwave suddenly disappeared. I thought your brain died!"

"Oh, no no I didn"

I didn't finish my sentence because I felt a strong lack of oxygen, so I gasped in the liquid for more.

"Pump some more oxygen in here! I'm losing it!"

Father rushed to the operation stand and pressed the b.u.t.ton himself.

"I'm sending it at the limit. What exactly are you doing? Your oxygen consumption is same as a running elephant!"

I

finally felt better as the liquid environment is adjusted.

"Well, I noticed I can change my brainwave frequency, so I made it faster, and the machines lost response when I reached x50 speed. You were moving in slow motions when I looked at you all. But I think doing this use up a lot of energy and cause my brain to heat up really fast. Gosh, my head feels like a hot water bag now. Can you turn down the temperature for a little more?"

"On it." Father pressed another b.u.t.ton. "You almost gave me a heart attack! Don't do it again when you aren't equipped with an oxygen tank and an ice bag."

"I know. I just pushed myself too far. I can still make it double or triple speed without feeling anything wrong."

"Just...be careful. You're a grown-up now, you know how to protect yourself. A gentleman needs to be responsible for everyone around him."

"Gentleman...what do you mean?"

Father asked the researchers to leave the room.

"So, you already done 'business' with Rose, right?"

"You knew already?"

"Your mother saw it from little Charon. And you just confirmed it to me. Remember, it's okay if you have the love for everyone, but it's NOT okay to be unfaithful. Tell me, who's Yuri, and Red Moon?"

"Um..."

"A man's job is to protect his lover under his strong arm. Listen, I don't mind if you wish to get your own harem house, cause that's every man's dream, me included. But make sure you don't let any one of them down, especially Charon! She's my most important daughter-in-law. You heard me? Don't, let, her, down. You can love many, which is totally alright. But there can only be one who'll accompany you to the end, don't make the wrong choice.

That's all. It falls onto yourself as to how you take my words."

"...Dad? You worry too much. I never had that kind of idea with Yuri and Red Moon."

"Humph. You can't fool your father that easily."

"Yeah, right."

I talked with father heart-to-heart for the whole night. Actually we haven't talked this much in the past few years. It's nearly the next morning when I slowly fell into a sleep. And I never realized when father left.

I went straight into the game after the rest. I agreed Felix that we're going to stop j.a.pan players from taking our Nation Treasure today.

I appeared in the game to find myself standing in the middle of monsters. Now this is a mistake only commonly seen on newbies--to log off on monster sp.a.w.n points. I made the mistake again because I rarely partic.i.p.ate in any "regular" gameplay...so I always forget how to play like normal.

Thankfully these are not really strong monsters. They are called [Soldier Rats], rats standing on two hind legs with short lances as weapons and bamboo hats on their heads. The hats even have smaller j.a.panese flags on them.

My appearance caused them to scatter away in horror. But they soon charged back. I'm not in the mood to deal with minions so I just summoned Lucky and asked him to make some roasted rats. Felix isn't here yet, might as well get some extra EXP.

Half of the rats ran away screaming after the other half of their comrades are all dead. When I prepared to move to another grinding site, the ground before me s.h.i.+fted, and a monster popped out from it.

"A cat?..." I spoke out in surprise.

"Huh? What cat?"

That's Felix. He just logged in and heard my words.

"Just look!" I pointed at the monster in front of me.

It sure looks like a cat alright. But it's also standing, which makes it a lot taller, about the same height to my chest. But other than that, the chubby, furry body and the round feline face look pretty cute.

"Strange. I was fighting with a buncha rats, so I was expecting a rat king or something to show up. Not...a cat."

"Stop calling meh cat you runt! I am the great Bakeneko, lord Toyoda Nyan-Jiro. Nyaaa!"

"A talking cat!" I'm interested now.

Felix readied his weapons and slowly moved to me. "Be careful. Monsters that can speak are at least level 500." 　　

"It's fine. I've killed enough strange things. A cat won't scare me now."

"DON'T CALL ME CAT!! How dare you insult the great and powerful Toyada-sama. Nyaa! Come out my loyal samurai!"

The cat waved around his plumpy paw. Another group of Soldier Rats appeared behind it. But they're different from the ones I saw before...They all carry armor and ninja katanas.

"What age are we living in? Rats are being bodyguards for a cat?"

"Meowaa! Kill those two!!"

The rats followed the order. But...they're too weak. These rats are only level 400 monsters, and they obviously win fights using their great number, which is not effective against my super hard defense.

Lucky did the same job as before by cooking the rats alive. It's a pity that they don't give much EXP to me. We wiped out probably a thousand rats under 5 minutes. Now only the monster cat is still standing there, looking at us like a fool.

"What-what do nyaa want??"

I slowly approached it. "Oh don't worry. I just want to borrow something. You're weak. But you're still a boss, so you must have treasures on you, am I right?"

Upon hearing this, the cat quickly covered its belly using both paws.

"No-no! It was so hard to get it from Orochi-sama. My life depends on it! Nya can't take it!"

"It's fine." I activated my claw blades which caused a sharp metal slas.h.i.+ng noise. "You won't need it when you're dead."

"Wait-wait! Give me a moment." The cat raised a paw to stop me. "...OK. I'll give you! But you will let me live!"

"That depends on whether the treasure worths my time."

"Fine!" The cat humphed as if it just made the biggest decision in its life, before it took out a small white bead from its belly. Ohh, so there's a pocket hidden under those fur.

"What's this?" I asked Dart to fetch the bead in case it's a trap. The cat seems pretty smart so I need to make sure. 　　

I checked the bead on my hand. It's just...white, and when I move it around there seems to be some dust coming off it. Is it a ball of dough?

"So, you gave me some dough and try to pa.s.s it as pearl?"

"Eh? I took the wrong item!"

It quickly brought out another white bead. This time it looks like a real treasure, because I see a faint golden aura around it.

Same as before, I asked Dart to take it for me.

"...[Bead of Evolution](Companion feed). Give it to a companion to let it evolve. The outcome is random."

After I read the description, Felix exclaimed: "That's good stuff! You have all that companions, so you can use it."

"But we got this thing together."

It doesn't feel right to keep the item all by myself, so I turned to the cat again: "Hey, you have more stuff on you right?"

"No, no no!" It waved its paws in panic.

I glanced at Lucky, who quickly received my message and grabbed the cat by its legs and began to shake it.

Jackpot. A bunch of random things fell on the ground. And somehow I'm feeling familiar about this scene...about a blue robotic cat in a certain comic.

"No, you say?" I searched around the pile. They're all junk...only some gold coins and equipment that are probably cheaper than the coins. Felix helped in killing the rats too so I'm thinking about getting something for him. But now I can't find anything.

"Oh right, Felix, you don't have any companion eh?"

"Nope. The eggs are expensive as s.h.i.+t, and I don't have the skills to capture them."

"What's your level?" I asked the cat.

"I--I'm 800!"

"...Really? I don't remember level 800 monsters to be so weak."

"I-I'm not weak! I'm just, a coward... And nya! What are you planning?? Are you-- You promised to let me go!"

"I said I won't kill you. Capturing you doesn't count as kill."

I didn't hesitate to take off my glove and use [Capture] at the cat.

It held its head and s.h.i.+vered on the ground. My skill failed twice. Before I can try again, the cat bounced up and began to shake its own head madly using both paws.

Now this doesn't feel good. The cat returned to all-fours, arched its back, with its fur all puffed up. It's growing bigger too. When it slowly looked at us, I saw those yellow cat eyes became crimson.

The monster cat meowed--I mean howled towards the sky, which sounded like tiger roar! Also, I noticed those long, sharp fangs when it opened its mouth.

"I think we have a problem."

The cat finished its transformation and stared at us. Not a single trace of those cowardice and laziness can be found around this creature now. The crimson, light bulb-sized eyes can only tell us the thing's ready to kill, eagerly.

"Um, Ziri? I don't think this will be an easy fight."

"I know. But 800 isn't too difficult. My Tank was level 900 before I captured him. Just hide somewhere and watch, I'll deal with it."

The monster cat already took the first move. It reached my face in an blink of an eye! I quickly gained some distance by two cartwheel flips, while Felix reacted a bit slow and was knocked away by a claw. Oops...So this monster is good at both speed and attack then.