Chapter 4

Today, some commotion is taking place in the Everlasting Forest. The magical forest had seen many things, but a maid running somewhere—this was a first. Was she late to serve her master tea? Or perhaps she gave him coffee instead of tea? Maybe. But why was she holding a fox under her arm? Was it her hunting trophy? And why, under her other arm, was there a furiously screaming cat? Was it her hunting pet? Are you always starting a book from the fourth chapter?

There's no more opportunity to keep the intrigue going—this was Yuri's double running like mad through the forest, heading west. The terrain, which resembled a neglected park, allowed her to move almost in a straight line, dodging rare obstacles, though she simply jumped over most of them. A couple of times, she encountered packs of wolves, which were ignored and quickly left far behind, deep in thought. Once, a wolf—apparently the leader—managed to dart in front of the maid, perhaps simply to ask what estate she was from. His head served her as a convenient springboard—let us remember him.

The double wasn't just running for no reason and without direction. In her hands were, as one might guess, Yuri and Mr. Gennady in an unusual role for themselves. A black cat with two tails—a ball of darkness with only a wide-open pink mouth standing out—was screaming its head off. At one point, the cat simply threw up, but the double kept running, leaving a repulsive trail behind her.

Yuri's plan for traveling west quickly worked brilliantly. Gennady Anatolyevich, who was not thrilled with the prospect of making the journey in ridiculous sandals, agreed to it. However, at first, he stubbornly refused to transform into a cat. But a test run with the bakeneko thrown over the double's shoulder convinced him to cooperate—the retired soldier got severely nauseous, and the rare branches along the way painfully whipped his backside. And worse yet, they threatened to lift his kimono!

This delighted Yuri, who had come to understand the burden of a real summoner's journey: maintaining his copy drained mana, which felt as if his very life was being sucked out of him. Moreover, the amount of mana required depended, in this case, on the load the double was carrying. Still, a swift run, even with a light load, greatly exhausted the summoner. Thus, the sprints through the forest were interspersed with breaks, during which the student eagerly drank mana potions.

During the breaks, Mr. Gennady remained in the form of a somewhat stiffened cat—with the face of a cat that had seen some serious sh*t.

Watching the cat's perturbations made Yuri a bit uncomfortable, having heard all sorts of "amazing" stories over the years of gaming together. The level of amazement grew in direct proportion to the number of brave soldiers in the voice chat.

The kitsune wanted some clarity:

"— I thought you served in aviation."

"— Yuri," the bakeneko answered very seriously, having to suffer some reputational damage, "in aviation, it's not just planes and paratroopers; there are also those who repair them, for example."

"— The paratroopers?"

"— The planes, for heaven's sake! Yuri, you're not the Tree of Wisdom..."

All in all, things were slowly moving along. Either the kitsune's double was developing a decent speed, or the forest wasn't that large, or perhaps it was just due to authorial whim, but by midday, the landscape started to change. Open spaces became more frequent, well-kept fields behind neat fences became common, and finally—a picturesque fantasy village appeared.

And it looked like a typical fantasy village, of course—since it was Western, there were half-timbered houses and tiled roofs everywhere. Even the outhouses scattered here and there were recognizable by their white walls with diagonal beams under the tiled roofs. Yuri noted the familiar architecture and layout and breathed a sigh of relief. Reality, after all, continued to copy "Grind Hell," even if not in all the details. It meant they could continue exploring without too much hesitation.

It was already past noon when new people appeared in the sleepy village. A maid walking alongside a young lady—that would be the impression of any random passerby. The "young lady" occasionally elbowed the maid in the side, grinning conspiratorially and gesturing for her to look somewhere. The maid, however, nodded in agreement with something and tried hard not to look in that direction.

Upon entering the village, the yokai had spotted something resembling a market in the distance and were heading in that direction, intending to find a tavern along the way. It was already late for trading; the villagers were dispersing to their homes with their purchases. Mr. Gennady scanned the passersby, and whenever he spotted a pretty woman, he hurried to share his discovery with Yuri. The student knew the retired soldier's preferences all too well, so he quickly looked away to spare his soul as a refined aesthete.

Yuri himself felt a bit uncomfortable, well aware of how out of place his maid outfit looked in this backwater village. He was worried about the treacherous tail, which he had to keep pressed against his leg, sweating from the constant anticipation of exposure. As for being a woman, the student tried not to think about it at all, lest he faint. Despite this, he occasionally blushed deeply, catching someone's gaze.

As already mentioned, the village was very similar to those found by players in "Grind Hell." And in the game, as Yuri remembered, for the convenience of players, all the villages were equipped with taverns, and some even had markets. The yokai had already noticed the market, and soon they came across a tavern—the object of their interest for obvious reasons.

Yuri and Mr. Gennady, who had been living on nature's bounty for days now, stopped as if on command. Without saying a word, they entered together.

The tavern exuded an air of noble classicism—it mostly resembled a stable repurposed for new needs: one large room without a ceiling, a couple of tables, something like a bar counter dividing the room in half, and a kitchen at the far end. There were no patrons, only the innkeeper, who was dozing behind the counter, and presumably his wife, busy at the stove. Noticing the visitors, she immediately approached them. She was a voluptuous woman of excessive weight, an oversized backside, and, shall we say, giant hills that immediately caught Mr. Gennady's gaze.

"— What'll it be?" she asked, wiping her hands on her apron and leaning against the counter, which noticeably tilted under her weight.

However, a brief conversation revealed that, besides beer and boiled vegetables with bread and cheese, there was nothing else. Still, the yokai were glad to have such a varied menu.

"— Feels like coming home," sniffled the bakeneko, wielding a spoon.

Yuri looked skeptically at his dish and asked:

"— Do you eat out of wooden bowls at home?"

"— Nah. My mother-in-law's cooking is just as terrible."

Over the meal, Yuri mentioned that he would try to ask the innkeeper about quests.

"— Speaking of quests, Yuri," the bakeneko now looked doubtfully at the vegetables, "are we sure we're ready? We don't have any armor."

"— Ah, armor... We don't have it."

After those words, Gennady Alekseevich looked at Yuri like he was some kind of dubious vegetable. Yuri hurried to explain:

"— I told you, the developers sell characters. Apparently, they decided that dressing them up in fancy outfits would be more interesting for the players. That's why not all game characters have armor, and even the armor that exists doesn't provide any defense bonuses, so as not to limit the players in their choice of clothing. However, in the game..."

Gennady Alekseevich, just as he did in the early days, clasped his head in his hands:

"— For heaven's sake, where is the world coming to? Am I in some kind of Barbie and Ken game? I should've been mining asteroids... Wait, Yuri, do you enjoy dressing up your girl?!"

Yuri ignored his colleague's last question and continued:

"— Don't interrupt me, Mr. Gennady! In the game, clothing could be imbued with magical enhancements, and attributes, as in most games, were improved through different amulets. Though I have no idea how it works here."

The rest of the meal was consumed under lengthy explanations by the gamer about amulets, totems, and fetishes. And also hurried clarifications that fetishes were not what Gennady Alekseevich thought, but rather items with supernatural properties.

After a hearty meal, Yuri decided to "test the waters" by talking to the innkeeper.

"— Excuse me, may I ask you something?"

The innkeeper woke up, staring at the unusual visitors—a maid from a wealthy estate and a grim-looking girl barely taller than the bar counter:

"— What do you want? No one's ever died from our cooking."

"— It's not about that. I wanted to ask if you need any help. Uh... any problems that require some outside assistance?"

"— Uh," the innkeeper couldn't quite figure out who was standing before him, and Yuri wasn't sure how to identify himself, "— the stable needs cleaning, miss. But Zina handles that..."

"— Not that kind of help, maybe there are monsters causing trouble."

"— Oh. Are you mercenaries?!" It was obvious that such guests were quite rare at the inn.

The matter began to progress. In "Grind Hell," there was no adventurers' guild—the indispensable element of every second isekai. If anyone gave out quests regularly, it was the innkeepers. It was a game mechanic that made sense—where else, if not here, could the paths of ordinary villagers and players seeking adventure cross? Yuri felt relieved, knowing that his glorious future wouldn't involve questioning every passerby for work. But his rejoicing was short-lived.

"— You don't look like the type who could solve such problems." The innkeeper reluctantly stood up and walked over to get a better look at them. "— And I don't see any signs of the Kaiser's office on you either."

The innkeeper began inspecting them as if he were buying horses at a market. But he himself was an interesting subject: bow-legged, barrel-chested, arms that also seemed to want to form a wheel shape, and a head that looked like a cannonball. Such a person could either work as a bouncer or a lumberjack.

"— No," Yuri agreed.

"— Maybe papers isn't all that important here in the sticks. But you two look questionable, ladies, and that matters more to me as a mediator."

"— You," the round innkeeper pointed at the bakeneko, "— where are you from? What's your race?"

"— Yokai," Gennady Alekseevich answered honestly. He and Yuri had already agreed to take the risk and tell the truth. Because it was a truth that could eventually come out on its own at the most inconvenient moment.

"— Not human? Hmm. And the type?"

"— Bakeneko."

"— Hmm. Interesting. Never heard of that. But I did hear recently that the Tree of Wisdom summoned someone. Are you from that group?"

"— Well, more or less."

"— I see. Rumor has it they're a bunch of assholes. And what's your class, miss?"

"— Martial artist."

At this, the innkeeper raised his eyebrows in surprise, but it was clear that he liked the class.

He questioned the kitsune in the same manner. He nodded understandingly and resignedly at the answers, but when he heard "illusionist," he suddenly snorted:

"— Miss, you should be showing tricks at the market, not fighting monsters."

Which was understandable and predictable—human illusionists had a different, honestly useless, set of skills in "Grind Hell" and weren't very popular.

"— I'm not hiring you. Get some registration papers from the Kaiser's office, achieve something that can prove your strength. Do some quests for a year before taking them. Without that—no!"

The HR manager went back to his place to continue napping.

The friends left the inn in silence. Mr. Gennady summed it up:

"— Didn't want it much anyway..."

Yuri, of course, wanted to. The start of his heroic career was being delayed. The kitsune sighed:

"— Alright, plan B. They didn't drag us to a pyre, and that's fine—let's go to the market. Maybe we can find something out. Maybe do some shopping..."

She trudged towards the market, gloomily kicking pebbles along the way.

But they were prevented from shopping at the market.

Because HE was standing in the marketplace.

Race: Human

…

In a brutal black cloak and leather. In a giant, brutal wide-brimmed hat. So giant that it looked like a UFO had landed on his head. The wind blew his brutal black curls that spilled out from under the hat.

Type: Noble

…

In his hand, HE held a brutal basket full of fresh, brutal vegetables. There could be no doubt—it was HIM! And HE noticed the yokai, turning and fixing them with an intense stare from his blue eyes.

"— D-d-d," Yuri, frozen in place, started turning and stammering, trying to report the extremely unpleasant news to Gennady Alekseevich, "— D-d-d..."

Class: Demonologist

"— What?" the bakeneko didn't understand, who was already being dragged back from the marketplace.

"— Demonologist!" Yuri whispered without turning around. He tried not to draw attention, but...

"— Is that the one coming towards us?" Gennady Alekseevich asked and suddenly realized that the kitsune, gathering the hem of her skirt, was already running down the street toward the forest. Without much thought, the bakeneko dashed after her.

"— Stop!" came a voice from behind. You could call the voice brutal, but that would be a lie. The voice was gentle and tender—it would have been perfect, for example, for a K-pop singer.

Of course, Yuri didn't stop, but he also couldn't run any faster—the dress was in the way. And both yokai understood that transforming into their animal forms in the middle of the village wasn't the best idea, though everything was leading up to it.

They almost reached the last house, beyond which the fields began, but the demonologist caught up!

The kitsune felt a hand on her shoulder. A yank, and Yuri was pressed against a wooden fence, ready for a fight.

The demonologist leaned against the fence, blocking the yokai's escape route.

"How awkward, oh God," Yuri thought, nervously clutching his apron and trying to press even harder into the wall. And to make the situation as awkward as possible, Yuri's face decided to flush with a blush. The demonologist then placed his brutal hands on Yuri's delicate, girlish shoulders and said what Yuri least expected:

"— Help me!"