Reborned Top Gamer: Spell-Swordman Rule the World

15 Demon Cat

The dragon turned out to be the dragon. The lyrics in the song also turned out to be more literal than he thought. The ‘ice dragon’ was the most powerful high-level Ice Spell Dragon. It was twenty feet tall, with four huge feet armed with sharp talons. It had two huge wings that shimmered when it spread them, each one seemed to be twice the dragon’s entire length. Its coat was made of ice that looked as hard as diamonds and glistened beautifully, it had a huge horn shooting out from between its red-rimmed eyes and a deafening roar.

The three of them watched, hidden, as the dragon spread its wings and flapped it, sprinkling shards of ice around. It roared and reared its head around. It could probably sense them but saw nothing, so it turned around and went back into the cave.

“Oh my God,” Jenny whispered, she looked at her teammates with huge eyes “we’re supposed to fight that?” her voice was getting high-pitched, the way it did when she was excited or agitated. Before Walt could reply, the three of them were put in a trance.

“Hidden task unlocked: high-level boss, Eternal Ice – prayer of Ice Spell Dragon,” the system announced, and they were brought back. The three of them sat in silence for a minute until Walt cleared his throat. He blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair, the dragon turned out to be more powerful than he anticipated and if they fought it wrong, they would be killed and sent back to the Land of Origin. That would mean, they would have to go through all those adventures again which would take ages.

“Okay,” he said “it’s a huge monster, granted and it would take a lot to defeat it but we have something it doesn’t. We have each other, we are a team. Jenny, you’re the first paladin in this game, probably the only one, and no one is as good at defense as you. Ailsa, I love you, you’re the only nomadic elf in this game and you have so much strength that makes even me jealous. I’m nothing special, but I’ve got the experience and we’re going to beat that monster. Who’s with me?” he asked, thrusting his hand forward, palm down.

“I’m with you Walt, and I love you too,” Ailsa said and placed her palm on the back of his hand. Then they both looked at Jenny who smiled.

“Well, I’m with you and I love myself too,” she said and they laughed. Placing her hand on top of Ailsa, they nodded at each other and started to devise a plan to bring down a monster of that magnitude. They left their hiding place and headed back into Ice Field, there was a small NPC village there that, unlike the one, they were coming from, had very few people staying there.

After the checked into an inn, they met in the dining hall and started to talk about their plans as they ate. Walt knew that a single battle could not defeat the dragon, they had to set multiple traps for it and execute it as well as they could. Because the dragon was a magical creature and had a huge mana value, it could not be affected by spells or magical attacks. Only physical attacks to hurt it, so most of the heavy fighting would have to be done by Jenny and him.

Ailsa frowned as he said this, claiming she could fight but Walt reminded her that she could use the bow and arrow well, so she had to stay at a measurable distance from the dragon. Ailsa was not satisfied with his response but she said nothing and they continued to plan. After a while, they decided to get some rest and start their task the next day.

They started by asking around in the village about where the dragon was usually spotted. They collected all sorts of information about the dragon and started to put their plans in motion. They were told there is a place where the dragon was supposedly hatched, they said it visited the place at least once a month and imposed a frightening presence. It did not do any harm in particular on its own but it killed anyone and anything that approached it.

“I think we should wait for when it comes to the nest to execute the first part of the plan,” Walt said as they made their way to the nest.

“But how will we know when it’s going to go there?” Ailsa asked and Walt considered their options carefully.

“We can stay there until it does, we’ll just set up camp,” Jenny offered and Walt nodded his agreement.

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Ailsa said and they walked the rest of the way there. The Ice Spell Dragon’s nest was made entirely of ice like its cave. There seemed to be blue shedding around it, so Walt figured the Ice Spell Dragon probably visited every month to molt. He bent to pick a bit of shedding from the ground and saw it was very tough, he kept it in his pocket for later analysis.

“Walt?” Ailsa whispered sharply, causing him to turn to her. She pointed her chin towards a direction and both Jenny and Walt looked. Because the area of the nest was made of hard reflective ice, they could see through the slabs of ice. A tall figure loomed behind one of the slabs, it was hiding and had a tail.

“Who’s there?” Walt demanded and placed his hand on the hilt of his sword. The figure started to move backward and shrink. Then a cat appeared from behind it, its tail held high. They let out a breath of relief at the sight of the small black feline that stuck it bright pink tongue to lick its nose.

“There you are!” a voice came from above. They snapped their heads up and saw a demon cat perched on top of the ice slab the cat had come from “I’ve looked everywhere for you,” she said and did a handstand on the slab before lifting up in the air and landing on all fours next to the cat. She picked it up and stroked its fur as she looked at Walt and the girls. She c****d her head at them and her cat ears twitched. She also had a long black tail, black fur only that covered her chest, lower half, arms and hands, a cat’s nose and whiskers, big brown cat eyes and a small smirking mouth.

“Alice?” Jenny said.

“Uh? Jenny! You survived!” she said with a huge grin, showing off her pristinely clean teeth. Walt looked at her carefully, feeling like he had seen her somewhere before. She closed her eyes and smiled even wider, that’s when it came to him.

“Miranda?” he asked and she blinked at him. Ailsa eyed Walt suspiciously and turned to glare at the mysterious stranger in front of them. Alice or Miranda licked the back of her hand and rubbed it over her face. She sighed and placed the cat on the ground, striking a pose with her hand on her hip as she looked at them.

“I don’t know you, or you,” she said, pointing her free hand lazily at Walt and Ailsa.

“But you know me,” Jenny said and frowned “remember? You left me to die when we teamed up,” the demon cat giggled and covered her face in mock shame.

“I’m so sorry Jenny, I tried to help but look! You survived!” she said and giggled again, then she looked at Walt and smiled bewitchingly “looks like you found yourself, new teammates,” she said and got on all fours, creeping towards Walt and Ailsa.

“My name is Miranda, I wonder how you know that though,” she said and stood in front of him. Ailsa held her man’s arms and glared daggers at Miranda who smiled sweetly at her.

“I used to work for Minan group, like you,” he said and her already big eyes widened some more.

“Ohh, now I remember you…you were new, they got to you too uh?” she said and laughed, it was sonorous and bounced of the icy walls of their surroundings. He remembered her laughing like that the first day he went to work for Minan, she had been angry but she still laughed like that. She was employed to Minan as a player like he was and had been a very high player, unlocking a hidden profession when she entered the game. When he asked around about why she left, he was told that Heather went too far and she had lost a lot of the rewards that had belong to her. The day she left, she had laughed saying they would never find a player like her, and they did not.

“So, you know her from work?” Ailsa said, still grabbing on to Walt. Walt was oblivious to the situation and answered honestly. Miranda grinned at Ailsa, then moved to her back sneakily like a cat, curling her body around hers.

“You are so pretty,” Miranda purred and rubbed her head against Ailsa’s neck. Ailsa shrunk away, alarmed but Miranda only smiled at her. It was an awkward situation but Walt understood that it was because Ailsa was an elf and any animal or anyone with animal characteristics would be drawn to her.

“Th-thank you,” Ailsa stuttered, making eye contact with Walt, her eyes screaming ‘do something’.

“Oh, what’s this?” Miranda asked, Walt and Ailsa looked and saw that she had moved away from them and was standing next to her cat again, holding the piece of shedding Walt had hit in his pocket. He gasped and tapped his pockets to see that it was really gone. Demon cats’ main characteristics were stealth and sneakiness. Like thieves, they knew how to hide in the shadows and pounce without their victims being aware and she was the best of them because she was a recessive demon cat.

“That’s mine,” Walt said and she smiled, then held the shedding up. She was suddenly put a trance and stood still. The others looked at each other wearily, then she came back. Miranda blinked multiple times before locking her big brown eyes with Ailsa’s.

“Whoops,” she said, dropping the shedding on the floor.