Chapter 50 – Cat Dad is a Cativator!

Seaside Town

A group of 10 players gathered in front of a marketplace NPC at the town’s plaza.

Two men in metal plate armor had been carrying a large sag of items. Three women of the squad wore nothing but skimpy leather suits and canes. As for the rest of them, they had put on the newly purchased leather set and a gnoll helmet.

The group had one thing in common. They had a cloak with a claymore sword insignia, which represented their guild.

Hovering over their heads were their HP and identities. However, everybody’s name had the same prefix in front of their names.

[Claymore United] was their guild. It sounded like a soccer team, but they were legit crypto farmers.

This team was one of their farming team, which was made to complete random quests and increase their Contribution Levels. However, today, they came here to purchase the new set of leather gears, which suddenly flooded the market for a short moment.

The captain of the team was a female mage in a striped leotard. Her game’s character was a dark elf fire mage, which specialized in offensive magic. Although her race was an uncommon one, her class was mediocre at best.

Her in-game name [Cherry Popper] attracted the gaze of many virgin male gamers. Combined with the cool beauty of a dark elf and her gravure-model-like curvy body, she easily became the target of any man’s fantasy.

“Well? How are the stats?” Cherry Popper looked at the ugly gnoll helmet of her rogue teammate.

The rogue, [Dog Eater], inspected his status screen and laughed.

“Sis, this is a lot better than our regular level 40 armor. It has a similar DEF as our regular gears, but it gives the set bonuses. It’s a shame that we have to use a club to complete the set, though.”

“So, does it worth 6 PACTs a set?”

“Oh, come on, sis. How much are 6 PACTs? Like… 30 cents? It’s dirt cheap!”

“That’s not my point!”_.

“Huh?”

“Look. Instead of buying the gears and thinking it’s cheap, how about you think where these gears came from?!” Cherry Popper pointed at the new gears and scolded her teammates.

“What?”

“Listen closely, you little twerp. If these items are sold in mass, that means someone has found a new hunting spot and has been monopolizing it! We should use these items as a clue to find its source and capture that dungeon before other guilds take over.”

“OHHH!!” Her teammates were impressed by Cherry’s insight. They nodded in agreement.

“So, tell me. Does the item description tell you anything about the dungeon, location, or the monsters?”

“Give me a second, sis. Let’s go somewhere quiet,” The team hushed and left the marketplace.

Cherry Popper and Dog Eater weren’t the only ones with the idea. In several towns and cities, players from various organizations purchased the Gnoll Set to track its source so that they could also farm them to make money.

In addition to the chaos, some NPCs from adventurer guilds and merchant guilds began posting portraits of Xiaomao. Fortunately, they didn’t use a warrant notice, but the game simply posted a notification.

[Dear Xiaomao. The King has summoned you to Siren City Palace. Please seek the audience with the King or report to the nearest adventurer guild in 3 days. Failure to comply will result in a warrant.]

…

Xiaomao took his time, eating every fish in his inventory.

Although all fish gave him stats, he didn’t have enough fish to boost every attribute to 200. As a result, he camped the marketplace, bidding on every fish that players dropped in the game market.

It worked, but it wasn’t efficient. Xiaomao collected 200 blue rarity fish from the market, but it took an hour of waiting. He wasted too much time.

Feeling that camping for fish wasn’t worth his time, Xiaomao ate all fish and purchased cat food to prepare for the hardcore grinding. Xiaomao spent 1,000 PACTs and rented the legendary crossbow from the NPC again.

As he couldn’t attack monsters from the safe zone, Xiaomao changed his location. He climbed the tower down while he activated the Chameleon skill.

The catopus’ body changed color to a rusty brown, blending with the suspension bridge tower’s color. His name and HP bar vanished from plain sight.

As Xiaomao slowly climbed a cable to descend from the tower, many gnolls looked up and twitched their noses.

Fortunately, they failed to locate Xiaomao. They simply looked around and scratched their head, confused by the body odor of a cat.

Xiaomao sweated profusely while he clung to the tower’s cable for his dear life. It seemed that the gnolls became more sensitive to his movements and scent.

‘Damn devs! You buff the gnolls, didn’t you?!’

Getting stared by upgraded gnolls was uncomfortable. But after a while, Xiaomao got used to the Solid Snake experience, and he regained his composure.

Xiaomao opened his game menu to check if he was out of the safe zone. Currently, he was 50 meters above the bridge, but he was still in the safety zone.

He continued to descend while trying his best not to make any noise. He got down to 30 meters.

DING

Finally, he was out of the safe zone. Now, he was free to attack the gnolls.

Xiaomao was delighted. He pulled out the legend crossbow.

But as Xiaomao aimed at the Gnoll General, he frowned. The boss monster was looking at him.

Xiaomao froze on the spot. He stopped all movements, pretending to be invisible.

The Gnoll General stared at Xiaomao for a whole 10 minutes. But in the end, he snorted and looked away as if he had lost interest.

Xiaomao narrowed his eyes. He put the crossbow back in his inventory and contemplated his tactical choice.

‘Should I attack the boss monster first? Is that really a good idea?’

Xiaomao glanced at the army on the bridge. Then, he turned toward the large gate.

‘No. It’s not the time to snipe the boss monster. I’ll grind some levels first.’

Instead of attacking the Gnoll General, Xiaomao came up with a new idea.

Since the boss side’s tower was considered a safe zone, the other tower might be a playable zone!

Safe Zones were unique. Only one existed in each dungeon. By this logic, the other tower should be in a free sniping position outside the safe zone!

Thinking this far, Xiaomao backtracked toward the suspension bridge tower on the other side. He climbed back to the safety zone, went back to the NPC, opened the marketplace menu, and purchased a long sword.

Xiaomao brought the long sword out. Then, he began practicing the newest skill.

Flying Sword!

Upon activating the skill, Xiaomao could see a mini-hologram in front of him and a small touch screen controller. Curious, Xiaomao pressed it.

The sword moved freely as if it was alive. It followed the controller’s instructions.

Xiaomao laughed. He felt like he was controlling a remote drone.

‘Alright. I should practice some more during my free time. But now, I should ride it to the other side.’

The cat controlled the sword to park nearby. He hopped on it and held the hologram controller. Upon moving a pseudo joystick, the sword slowly climbed altitude and cruised to the other side of the bridge.

For the first time, Xiaomao enjoyed his first flight skill.

“I’m a sword cativator, munya!”

…

A minute later, Xiaomao reached the first tower on the stair’s side. Now, he could easily go back to the second floor.

However, that was never Xiaomao’s intention. He disabled the Flying Sword skill to save MP. By standing on the tower and looking down at the crowd of gnolls below, Xiaomao felt a lot better.

He was no longer in the safe zone, and he was in the position to snipe the crowd below!

The catopus brought out the rainbow-colored crossbow and aimed randomly at the patrolling unit. He pulled the trigger and tested the water.

The bolt missed all targets. It hit the bridge and exploded.

BOOM

Various numbers appeared along with the mushroom of fire. Many gnoll soldiers screamed while gnoll shamans raised their staffs and healed their allies.

Noticing that he could farm some monsters from here, Xiaomao stopped hesitating. He activated an AOE skill right away.

His vision locked the center of the bridge as the target. He raised his crossbow and aimed 45 degrees forward before he pulled the trigger.

One Man Thousand Arrows!

Again, the rain of arrows hailed upon the crowd of thousand gnolls. But this time, many armored gnolls looked up and raised their shields while gnoll shamans stomped their feet and created a thin layer of barriers.

BOOM

BOOM

BOOM

The chain explosion of one thousand bolts instantly obliterated 500 gnoll soldiers and 5 shamans at once!

DING

<You have slain Gnoll Soldier Level 42!>

<You have gained 63,000 EXP!>

<You have slain Gnoll Shaman Level 45!>

<You have gained 450,000 EXP!>

Their death was satisfying. Over a thousand messages flooded his notification panel, and his level jumped from 22 to 32. At the same time, common and uncommon-grade heavy armor pieces were ejected from Xiaomao’s full inventory. Three types of spellbooks dropped from the five dead shamans, and a total of 15 super rare spellbooks sat in his inventory slots.

Despite seeing the satisfying deaths of gnoll soldiers and a few shamans, Xiaomao had no time to check the new books’ detail. He noticed something odd about the bridge, the reactions of the gnolls, and their behavior.

The bridge’s HP was higher than before. The structure’s HP only decreased by 10% after a barrage. Also, more than half of the targeted gnolls survived the volley!

Out of 5,000 gnolls on the bridge, 1,000 were within the previous firing range, and only 500 died.

AWOOO!

AWOOO!

The remaining 4,500 gnolls on the bridge and the 1,000 gnolls around the General howled. They slammed their weapons against their shields and glared at Xiaomao before charging toward the tower.

Several of them held their sword in their mouths and hung their shields on their back. Their long nails dug into the tower, clawing and climbing the tower. The rest of them grabbed the suspension bridge’s cables and began climbing.

One of the shamans pointed their staff in his direction and a fireball flew toward him!

“Uh-oh.”