HC:Pacifist | Ch. 46 - Oli

With an updated catalog of products to trade, Roth felt ready to conquer the world. It was time to get some orders down and complete his first trade run. Unfortunately, however, the system was not kind enough to give Roth a loaded cart once he signed the trade agreement with each race. He had to wait until the cooldown of each item's production slowly reset, and he could fill his stocks to make a trip worthwhile.

He had a few days to kill. There was only one thing he had pending that he could do in the meantime: the cat burglar quest! Roth had given much thought to how the riddles of Count Crow fit altogether. The riddle that spoke of dogs had been a hint to visit Oscar. By following up on it, he had secured the lure for the trap: [Concentrated Catnip]. From the first riddle about Jason being a mouse, he had gotten the idea to see the Ratans again. There he had gotten the trap itself. It had been an expensive trap, at 45 gold, but if it could hold Oli, a very high-level NPC, it would be worth it.

Now, he had to think about the other three riddles. It talked about water, midnight, and that cats will eat mice just as cattle eat grass. The last one was the one that confused Roth the most. He just wasn't sure if this was another reference to the catnip grass that would be the lure to his trap or if it was something else. After all, there were no cattle in these woods.

Shrugging, Roth opened up the map and checked where there was water in the Southeast end of the Woods. There was no river or lake in these woods. At most there were scattered small ponds. There was one of them there. He still had several hours until midnight; it was time to retrieve what Oli had stolen.

*

The old cat spent most of his days sleeping. When one had nine lives and was living through their seventh, tiredness was the biggest constant in life. That and hunger. It was time to get a snack. The moon was hidden tonight, but to Oli's feline eyes, everything around him looked as clear as daylight.

Oli stood from his comfortable fluffy cushion and stretched his legs, arms, back, and tail, yawning to relax his jaw. This was the good life. Partly, it was a good life because he was a cat. A cat's life was good, and that was that.

It was also a good life because most of it was spent sleeping and dreaming of his next glorious heist, or beautiful balls of yarn, or of another prank he pulled on one of those foolish dogs. But the biggest reason why his life was good was because of the shiny treasures that kept him company.

Some of them he had brought here from far away. A sandworm eggshell from the scorching sands of the Sun Desert. A ruby gem taken from right under the noses of the fireflies of the Fire Pits. A trident from the crabaliers, gold feathers from Sky Island, and even gemstones from the Rock Canyons. All pretty, all his.

Long as his life was, he had to find a way to keep himself busy. He still had two hearts to go through. Cursed be that Rain of Fire. It had made him outlive his master! How many lives had it been since his purrs were genuine? Oh... if only he would have been here to see this trove of treasures. Master had always liked well-made things that could be made into beautiful things. Back then, Oli had needed no cushion; he had his master's lap.

Oli glanced at the pile of mementos he had stolen from his neighbors. They weren't made by master, but they definitely had been inspired by him. It was important to understand how he felt about these knock-offs. After all, that would dictate where in his collection they would go. Feeling his stomach claw at his attention, Oli postponed the difficult decision.

Leaving through the door, Oli took a deep breath to let the night enter through his nose and inform him about what was happening in his neck of the woods. He sniffed a few more times. There was something different In the air tonight. He took another deep breath. His pupils began enlarging, his muscles tensing, and his tail stood up.

Before he realized what he was doing, Oli was running toward the most delicious smell he had felt in a while. It was outside of his control. The smell was too salty and sweet, too savory and sour. It was something wonderful that he just had to rub himself into and smell and eat and lick.

He arrived at the pond where he came to drink every day. He hated drinking, but what choice did he have but to do it? The pond was dark, painted by the shadows of the trees that encroached on it, scattering some of their canopies over it. In one of the branches, Oli located the source of the wonderful smell. It was some sort of cushioned pink box wrapped in chords and fluffy things hanging from it. There were also feathers, squeaky toys, and strings. It was of fascinating design, and Oli felt the excitement in his jaw build up at the prospect of biting all those things.

For a moment, he hesitated. All the water beneath the box hanging from the tree branch scared him. But the allure was just too much. With one precise jump, he easily made the thirty-meter jump from the pond's margin to the box's inside.

It was all around Oli now. The whole box stank of it. An involuntary pur came over him, and he rubbed himself into this wonderful perfume while scratching and biting all the fun toys around it. He hadn't eaten anything yet, but this smell was so delicious that he felt filled.

*

Roth finally let out the breath he'd been holding. He hoped the cat burglar's house would be close to the water. It had been a long shot in the dark. But it had worked. For a moment, Roth stood there examining the trap the ratans had given him. He had hoped until the very last second that when the cat entered it, it would snap on him, enclosing him. It turned out it did nothing! It was just a freaking toy designed to distract a cat briefly.

Had he paid 45 gold for that? Had it not been for him having sprayed the whole bottle of concentrated catnip on the thing, he reckoned that the cat would have already left. Feeling old Roth wanting to peel off the skin of his face, he decided to walk and break away from the destructive escalating emotions. Seeing the direction that the cat had come from, Roth took off toward it.

He found a secret door that led into the hollow of a tree left carelessly wide-open. Roth crouched and entered Oli's treasure trove. Roth couldn't see anything in the darkness here. Roth took a [Glowshroom] of his inventory and sighed in relief at being able now to see. The ghostly pale light bounced off the expensive-looking treasures.

Roth forced himself to break his look away from the bounty, undoubtedly there for decoration. He could not take it all, even if he wanted to, and time was of the essence. He didn't trust that the trap if it even could be called that, would hold the cat for long. With the [Glowshroom] held as high as he could, he caught an object that reflected its light more than all others.

He dove right toward the first item he identified as being something he had to retrieve. He had finally found the disco ball. He put it in his inventory. It weighed 10 kilos! That was unexpectedly heavy. If everything he was going to retrieve was this heavy, there was no way he could take anything else. He would leave that for consideration after putting the stolen items into his bag.

He then saw the Tusk stolen from Prince Piglet sitting on a pedestal. As he held it, his eyes widened. 15 kg? How could Prince Piglet have so much weight on just these tusks? Roth gulped as he tried to imagine how high Prince Piglet's strength was.

He kept urgently searching for the remaining items and found them all piled in the corner of the room. At first, he hadn't recognized the Ratan tapestries because they had seen so much bigger in the throne room. But he realized now that it had seemed bigger to him when he was in his shrunk version. Now that he was back in his full human size, they seemed more like cloths than tapestries. Fortunately, that made them lighter. Even so, each weighed 2 kilos! Wrapped in each of the tapestries were the remaining items: the four enigma diamonds and the two fox tomes.

Now, it was time to decide if he would take anything else. Did he dare to take any of the items on display? He saw a beautiful-looking golden fork. It seemed to be a fantastic treasure. He reached out his hand to touch it, but just before he picked it up, he drew his hand back.

What would happen when Oli discovered that he had stolen something from him? Would he chase him to the ends of the earth? After all, even Prince Piglets, with his freakish strength, was terrified of this NPC. Ratatouille, a level 99 NPC, can only fight Oli to a standstill even when assisted by the four Mouseketeers. They might be willing to put out their necks for him, but maybe they wouldn't protect him if he took something else that the burglar treasured.

Roth once again lifted the [Glowshroom] to see if there was something he had missed. To a corner, he saw what appeared to be a pile of trash. It was a box filled with broken things that seemed to have been discarded. Oh well, thought Roth. Maybe I can sell some of it to another NPC. Roth walked toward the box, picked stuff up, and put it in his inventory randomly. He stopped once he had reached the weight cap.

He turned to leave. As he approached the door, the light revealed a portrait of an unassuming easy-looking man holding a grey cat in his arms. Roth felt drawn to the painting for some reason. He looked at the tiny cat with a red collar. It had a name tag on it, but Roth couldn't read what it was. At the bottom of the painting, a name was signed.

Roth finally made out the name: Bergelmir. The handwriting was so simple but so appealing. How could a signature grab his attention so much? He recognized the calligraphy from somewhere but couldn't remember exactly where. This man seemed worthy of his respect for some reason. And it was as if... as if there was light in him. Roth didn't know why he felt this way, nor could he put a finger on why this was the right choice of words to describe it; it just was. Roth felt obligated to pay his respects and performed a bow. After he did so, he turned tail and disappeared into the night.

*

Out of the shadows stepped Oli. He had been here the whole time. He withdrew his claws inside his paws and followed the running human with his eyes. He was a cat, a curious creature. Oli had wanted to study the human before he attacked him.

Also, as a thief, he appreciated the human's effort to prepare this heist. This catnip solution was a canine formula; the trap was of Ratan making. The human also smelled of badger, fox, raven, and boar. He didn't fear any of them, but all of them together was something Oli would rather not provoke. Not to speak of his landlord. Oli clicked his tongue. The lord also had his song around the human for some reason. He dared not mess with that old monster.

Oli, the cat burglar, stared at the painting on the wall. The human had seen his master's light. He would let him go. The items he took weren't made by his master but by some of his... apprentices. Oli had just taken them because they reminded him of his master's work. He had taken the disco ball and the tusk to mess around with the count and the prince.

Furthermore, the human had even been friendly enough to take out some of his trash. Oli recorded the lingering scent in his mind. What an interesting human.

Ch. 45 - Old Red

INDEX

Ch. 47 - Appraisal