The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Wait a minute, what are you talking about? Why have I never heard of this before?" Fish was completely stunned after hearing Ange's cryptic explanation. "Didn't I tell you before that important things must be told to me first? But I didn't..."

"Uh... um... this is a bit... special..." Ange said. For some reason, her cheeks turned pink, a rare occurrence, revealing a shy expression—a stark contrast to her usual elegant and calm demeanor, or her bloodthirsty (in battle) appearance. "So please... please forgive me for keeping this a secret from you before."

"Meow..." Having never seen Ange make such an expression before, Fish was at a loss for words. So, completely bewildered, he could only be led down to the basement by Ange, while the two maids guarding the door—Peanut and Xiao Luo—both forced smiles upon seeing him.

This made Fish even more panicked.

"No...uh...don't worry, just go in!" Seeing Fish's uneasy expression, Ange finally had no choice but to coquettishly push Fish into the basement. Then...a warm steam with a faint sulfur smell enveloped the two of them.

"Huh? There's a hot spring down here?"

"Volcanoes are everywhere in the territory of the Penglai Kingdom, so hot springs are naturally very common," Anjie explained. "Of course, the hot springs here are drawn from outside Akitsukyo Castle, and there are underground water pipes."

"It seems the former Duke of Penglai knew how to enjoy life."

After adjusting to the humid, warm air in the basement, Fish began to look around through the thin veil of steam. The basement was even larger than the ground floor of the Campanile Palace, with about half of the area occupied by a swimming pool filled with hot spring water.

Interestingly, the grand duke who built this place seems to have had a rather unique aesthetic sense, deliberately making the pool resemble a complex and winding artificial river, and even constructing miniature pavilions and towers along the "riverbanks," planting many flowers and plants. Several stone arch bridges with red railings, no more than two or three meters long, span these steaming artificial rivers, with decorative fox, crane, and rather abstract lion statues placed on both sides of the bridges.

In a small pavilion in the center of the basement, with a plaque that reads "Cool Breeze Pavilion," the others were waiting for him.

"Hi! Mr. Fish!" The first to wave and shout upon seeing Fish was the energetic Alicia. She was wearing a blue short-sleeved uniform with a miniskirt and a hat with ribbons. Huang Yan had previously told Fish that this kind of clothing originated from naval soldiers in the old civilization era, but later, by some twist of fate, it became a very popular school uniform.

"Mr. Fish, you...have come." Sitting to the side, Xiaoxing hugged her fluffy tail, looking shy. Of course, the reason for her expression was largely due to the striped bikini swimsuit she was wearing. Meanwhile, Shuangye was wearing a one-piece swimsuit that Fish had seen at the school in the Death Game, with the "Moon Shadow" given to her by Ange hanging on her back.

Aside from the three who had been living in the Camphor Leaf Palace, the others present... gave Fish quite a shock. Among them, the one who surprised him the most was Moon Butterfly, who had the largest breasts of everyone and had swapped bodies with him for several weeks.

"Hey? Shouldn't you be in the Ten Victories Marquisate?" Fish asked.

"That's right, but I've applied for a military officer position in the Duke of Penglai," the villainous young lady, dressed in a semi-transparent lace dress, spread her hands, "so that I can see Your Highness more often."

"But if I remember correctly, didn't you dislike me very much?"

"That...that's all in the past..." Yue Die's face flushed crimson, like a boiled shrimp. "Now I have truly reformed myself, repented, and deeply realized the mistakes I made in the past..."

"In short, this guy is aware of Your Highness's future status and has decided to make you an important political investment," Ange patted Fish on the shoulder. "She knows very well that if you can succeed as the Grand Duke of Fayun, becoming your concubine will help her achieve more political goals in the future... not to mention the claim to inheritance rights she can obtain after giving birth to children."

"How impure," Xiaoxing muttered.

"Pure? Hey, hey, marriages between nobles are part of politics, so you can't just use the so-called definition of 'purity' to measure them!" Yue Die defended herself.

"Nobles... Hmm... I never thought that someone like me, an unknown person from a border region, would one day become a noble."

Upon hearing Moon Butterfly's words, Melu, with her squirrel tail, muttered to herself. She and Shana, standing beside her, were dressed in matching polar bear costumes. Although they hadn't known each other for very long, after Shana decided to stay in this era to accompany her friend, she and Melu remained by Ange's side as "servants." But Fish never expected that they would appear here too!

"Um... Your Highness Ange, what exactly is going on?"

"In short, after discussion, we decided to determine the most important priorities in this way," Ange explained. "After all, this kind of thing can't be dragged on forever."

"What priority?" Fish was completely confused.

"My lord, you should know that in polygamous noble families, the status and ranking of wives and concubines are very important—the earlier a wife or concubine marries, the higher her status, and the greater the weight she carries in terms of her own title and the inheritance rights of her descendants."

"Uh... I've heard about that." Fish's face immediately turned red.

"Furthermore, wives and concubines of higher status are more likely to be seen as the original wives who have found true love... although I must admit that a large part of these are purely political marriages. But in most cases, that's how people really see it. Conversely, concubines who marry into the household of a great nobleman in his later years are even seen as wicked vixens who seduce their husbands for the inheritance."

"Um... it feels a little strange for you to say the word 'vixen'..." Fish glanced at Ange's fox ears and tail.

"Uh... well, that's the gist of it," Ange said. "In short, although everyone here is a comrade-in-arms who fought together, aside from me, the legal wife, whose status is slightly higher, we should all be equal in principle. However, in order to establish the distinction between inheritance rights and status, we must at least legally differentiate between superior and inferior status... This means that we need to distinguish the priority of marriage order. I hope my husband can understand."

"These are really troublesome aristocratic rules..." Fish clicked his tongue. "But why are Shana and Melu participating too?"

"I convinced them. After all, Shana, as a survivor of the old civilization era possessing a wealth of important information, is of immense value to us. For safety's sake, the knowledge she possesses must never be leaked. Therefore, binding her to you through marriage is the best course of action. Miss Meru is Shana's best friend, and the two don't want to be separated, so they can only marry you together," Ange said. "But rest assured, they will both play an important role in our cause..."

"I don't care about the effectiveness... Are you sure they'd agree to something like this?"

"No, no problem." The two people dressed as polar bear mascots nodded and each took out a gun! This scene startled Fish, but he quickly realized that they were just two plastic water guns.

Although the production capacity of polyethylene plastic was relatively limited in this era, certainly not enough to mass-produce disposable toys, it was extremely difficult to decompose and had a huge production capacity. Such materials were abundant in the ruins and even garbage dumps left by the old civilization and could be easily recycled.

Next, Xiaoxing, Shuangye, Yuedie, and Alicia also took out their water guns. Alicia even tried firing one into the air, spraying out a stream of red, viscous liquid... which seemed to be tomato juice.

"What are they trying to do?"

"Since no one would be satisfied with any other method for determining priority—after all, comparing birth, rank, strength, swordsmanship, etc., would be particularly unfair—but simply using lotteries and dice rolls seems too arbitrary. Therefore, based on Miss Shana's suggestion, and His Excellency Huang Yan's further modifications and improvements to this suggestion, we have decided to conduct the duel in this way," Ange said. "Clang! Water gun and tomato fight!"

"What the hell is this?!" Fish shuddered in fright.

"Simply put, my lord, you have thirty seconds to run—but you can't leave this basement. Then, everyone will start chasing you. There are two weapons: a can of diluted tomato juice in a water gun, plus three tomatoes you carry. Whoever hits you with tomato juice or tomatoes first scores a point. The person who hits my lord the most times within half an hour automatically becomes the winner."

"But how do we identify who hit them?"

"It's simple. I added food coloring to both the tomato juice and the surface of the tomato, so there will be slight differences in color, which can be used to distinguish them."

"Uh... I see, I see. So, the winner will be..."

"That person will have the right to be the first to marry you after I, his principal wife—in short, the highest-ranking concubine. Incidentally, according to the custom of the Duchy of Fayun, this position means the opportunity to be granted the title of viscount for those without a title!" Ange said.

"Marry me and you can become a viscount? That's amazing..." Fish, who was a poor boy begging for money in a bar just over half a year ago, was stunned.

"In addition, the second and third concubines can become honorary nobles, and the rest can at least nominally obtain a status equivalent to an Imperial Knight... However, these positions can be decided later. Today, we only need to decide the most important 'second person'."

"Although my own title is higher than that of a viscount, if I could become the second person by the side of the next Grand Duke of Fayun, it would be of great significance to the Ten Victories Marquisate, at least politically," Yue Die said, picking up the water gun first. "I hereby declare that Prince Fish cannot escape."

"Based on this alone, I cannot let you win," Shuangye said. "You actually dared to try to taint pure love with a political marriage driven by self-interest. Based on this alone, you will certainly not be the winner."

"Well, well, as expected of my nemesis!" Moon Butterfly launched a chop attack at Frost Leaf, only to have it easily dodged. "Today, I'll show you who's truly more capable!"

"Oh, right, one more thing," Ange said with a smile, "Contestants can interfere with each other, as long as they don't cause any real harm. Also, the thirty-second countdown has started now. In order to avoid making everyone feel awkward, and in order to allow everyone to use their full strength fairly, please do your best to hide and run away, my dear husband."

"Ah... wait? Okay!"

Realizing he had no choice but to run away after realizing he couldn't opt ​​out of the game, Fish took off running—after all, he didn't want to be caught so early and spoil the fun. He especially didn't want Moon Butterfly to be the "first person"... After all, even after swapping bodies with her for so long, he still didn't have much affection for her.

Although the underground hot spring bath is not large in absolute terms, thanks to the ingenious landscaping techniques of the original designer, the low walls, bamboo groves, bamboo fences and various decorations along the artificial river effectively divide the space, making it naturally full of hiding places.

Of course, the misty fog did make hiding easier to some extent—at least, in a place where you couldn't see anything more than ten meters away, catching someone was still quite inconvenient. But the problem was, after running a short distance, Fish himself found himself in a dilemma.

After all, with more places to hide, deciding where to hide becomes a huge problem for cats.

"Thirty seconds are up!" Just as Fish was still standing there in a daze, Ange's excited voice rang out. Then, Fish's keen ears noticed something "whoosh" into the air and then fell towards his location!

"Meow!" Fish quickly dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding a tomato falling from the sky. The rotten tomato grazed Fish's tail by a hair's breadth and landed with a "thud" on a decorative stone lantern a few centimeters away, turning into a puddle of mush. Of course, besides the tomato's natural red color, the mush also had a hint of purple, which was clearly the food coloring Ange had mentioned earlier.

"Judging from the sound, it must have hit the target!" Then came Xiaoxing's voice, "Miss Shuangye is in first place!"

"No, no," came Frostleaf's voice next. "I can feel it."

"Huh? But we can't see anything right now, and we can't even hear very clearly," Alicia said.

"That's true, but Miss Alicia, have you ever heard of the concept of 'mind's eye'?" Frostleaf suddenly asked.