We don't have three cats…
I focused my gaze on the average-looking third cat. It was a grey and black striped cat with green eyes that was missing about half of his tail, so he looked a little clumsy in his movements.
Missing a part of the tail?
"Rose…?"
"Hi Spence! Look what we found!!"
"Is that cat… The undead one?"
"Yes! I thought that you got the notification."
I looked at my notifications feed, and it was filled with the training mission.
'System can you just give me the summary for this type of missions from now on?'
[Changing mission settings]
[Mission Complete: Train the rookies
Type: Weekly
Reward: 108 EP (54 trainees)]
Without the massive number of notifications on the way, I found the mission I was looking for.
[Mission: Find and eliminate the corrupted beasts (2/5).
Type: Chain (3/3)
Reward: 50 EP, 1AP, 2 SP (Per kill) (2/5)
Obtained Rewards: 100 EP, 1 AP, 2SP;
Teammates Rewards: Rose (Wis+1, Metaphysics exp obtained)
Time Limit: 15d 06h 31m 28s]
As I thought this cat was the one that has been avoiding us for a while. Since it was Rose the one that completed the mission she was rewarded with the SP and AP accordingly to the method she used to complete it. The SP was used to advance the experience bar of a skill, but it wasn't enough to level it up yet.
In a way that was better than what I have to do since I need the full points to level it up despite the current advance, I achieved on the skill. For example, if I have half the bar filled, I don't get a discount on the number of SP needed, and I have to pay the full price for leveling up anyway.
I looked at the cat and thought of something. I opened the party tab, went to the end of Rose's sheet and noticed a new entry at the end.
[Contracts
Lucy (Moon rabbit): Cleanse (Resonance: Soul Purification), Levitation
Paws (Midnight Panther): Plane Walker, Expel (Resonance: Plane Shift)
Cai-Cai (Sea Snake): Shrink, ???
Tailless (Stray cat) : ???]
"You contracted him?"
"Yeah, Dante found him on the roof after he blinked here, so we went to talk with him. He accepted to be cleansed in exchange for a can of tuna, but he died for real in the process so I caught his soul in my realm before it disappeared and offered him a contract so he could enjoy the food."
"How is it here now? wasn't his body infected?"
"The body disappeared when we cleanse it, but after making the contract, I just materialized him."
"…"
That makes no sense at all, but thinking about it my power makes less sense sometimes anyway.
"Don't you think it's a little cruel calling him Tailless?"
"Hey! He liked that one! And don't peek on my character sheet without permission!"
Her cheeks were red again… I love seeing her like this, but we really need to work on her naming sense.
Well, she has a new pet, and we finally advanced on the mission, so there was no harm done, but somehow… I had an ominous feeling…
"Rose… You are completely forbidden to make a contract with the chihuahua…"
'I second the motion.'
Dante's voice followed mine right away in our minds and was quickly followed by others.
""Meow.""
"Hiss."
*Random bunny noises*
With all her pets agreeing with me, she accepted to not make a contract with the chihuahua if she finds him, I can't help but feel like dodging a little but annoying bullet there.
..
Afterward, we talked about our days, and that included Tailless backstory as a stray cat… All this while I watched Tailless just in case there is some of the corruption behind, Although it was unlikely for it to happen after Rose's and Lucy's Cleanse.
The front door opened and Hope entered the room with a young brown-haired girl following her.
"I found you new disciple outside the building!"
Behind her, Sophie was looking slightly blushed at the mention of her waiting outside. Before I could greet her and introduce her to Rose, Hope ran forward.
"We have a new cat!"
She went forward, but before she could pick up Tailless, he blinked out of her reach.
"It's contracted?"
She asked at Rose who was just laughing at her friend as she tried to grab the stray cat again.
"Yes."
"Tell him to let me pat him."
"Sorry, he made me promise to not force him to do that…"
I didn't know that there could be a condition in her contracts, but it was good to know it. While Hope tried without success to grab the cat I introduced Sophie to Rose.
"Rose this is Sophie I told you about her earlier. Sophie this is my girlfriend Rose, and the idiot you already met over there is my sister hope, whom I suppose already introduced herself."
"Hey don't call me an idiot!"
"Don't act like one, this same thing happened before when Dante was little, and you couldn't catch him either… What makes you think you can catch an unwilling blinking cat?"
'I remember that!! She was so flustered after I escaped from under the bed and hid where she couldn't find me.'
For once the roles were inverted, and we were the ones teasing Hope, it felt nice, but I noticed that Sophie was looking at us with a sad smile. I stopped teasing my sister since this probably reminded her of her brother.
"Hope, leave the cat alone, and go get ready, the others probably are going to arrive soon."
"Hayley said that she was not going to come to the training, she was going to be out in some mission."
It surprised me that it was Rose the one that knew about it and I couldn't help but feel nervous at the thought of them talking to each other.
"Okay, someone knows about G?"
"He should be coming a little late as usual."
G has been spending a lot of time lately in the creation of weapons using the materials we got the last time.
"Just wait for him at the roof then. Sophie, come with me. I'll explain what we usually do."
Sophie and I were both still in training clothes, but the girls needed to change for the training.
I took the chance to show her the roof. On the side nearer to the roof door, there was a chest and a stash where you could find the most common type of weapons. Even if we all have our favorites, we still needed to know how to handle some more weapons.
Even if this was not a video game the fact that some kind of weapons was more effective than others in certain situations was still valid. Also sometimes we don't control which is the best weapon we have available, for example, G's best weapon is the halberd, but he still felt better using a hammer.
In my case, I like using short blades, but longer swords and spears were more effective almost all the time. Even Hayley is receiving some training in the use of some weapons now.
"What weapon do you usually use?"
"I still don't pick a definitive one… I wanted to use a rifle like my brother, but it is not suitable for me…"
"Why?"
"My power allows me to infuse energy in objects, but I tried it once in a bullet, and it exploded…"
It sounded weird so I wanted to see it my self, I took a random short sword from the chest and put it on her hands.
"Show me."
I started to focus on the movements of her aura.
The aura wasn't as strong as any of my current partners, but it had an ever-changing prismatic appearance, and when it stopped on some colors a little longer the strength of her aura got near G's level.
She grabbed the sword and looked at it for a few seconds. Her aura was trembling as if it showed how nervous Sophie was. I tried to calm her down before she continued.
"Don't be nervous. This is not a test, I just want to know your ability so we can train in the best way for you."
My words seemed to calm her down a little as the aura became steady. Her aura changed again an got a violet and spiky appearance for a second, at that moment as if following her instructions, a part of mutated aura separated from her body and started to get into the sword.
The aura moved from her hand to the handle and ended on the blade. The previously normal looking sword now had its own aura and sparkled with purple lighting.