The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"It's really quiet here."

Although Anjie had assured them that there was no one in the village at the moment, the group remained cautious and did not approach the buildings unnecessarily. Instead, they chose to set up a campfire on the relatively open edge of the village, near the riverbank, and began barbecuing.

This area was originally used to store roughly processed logs during the logging season, but now only the marks on the hard ground and a few rotten logs remain. Nearby, a chute has been built to slide timber hauled from the sawmill into the river and transport it to the downstream port.

In some simple sheds, the group easily found a large amount of sawdust, dry bark, and chopped branches left over from wood processing, which became perfect ingredients for barbecue.

Meanwhile, Mint and her two maids swiftly gutted the taimen, cleaned away the blood, removed its internal organs, and chopped it into pieces of varying sizes. They then rubbed it with the salt and spices they had brought and placed it on the firewood. As the flames roared, the aroma of the salted and spiced fish, licked by the fire, began to fill the air, making everyone who smelled it drool with envy…

...Of course, there seems to be one exception.

"What are you doing now?" As the surface of the fish began to turn golden brown, Fish noticed that Frostleaf suddenly stood up, knife in hand, and became alert.

"I must ensure everyone's safety," Frostleaf replied simply and directly. "The scent of food may attract dangerous beasts, or even chimeras. If we allow them to approach without vigilance, it could pose a huge potential danger."

"This girl is pretty good. At least her attitude deserves a 95 out of 100. I'm deducting 5 points because she still hasn't noticed her companion's combat abilities," Huang Yan said in the private communication channel. "Mr. Fish, you should learn from her."

"What should I learn?"

"Of course it's this serious spirit," Huang Yan said. "Putting everything else aside, at least Miss Shuangye's attitude is very proper, which is excellent."

"That's right, I really like this proper attitude too," Ange whispered in Fish's ear, "What, aren't you going to consider it?"

"Consider? Consider what?"

"Of course, it's about adding another concubine to the harem," Ange's smile was full of...predatory intent. She looked exactly like a fox smiling at its chosen prey, a rabbit. "What's wrong? It's perfectly acceptable for His Highness the Grand Duke of Fayun to have multiple concubines and lovers. Besides, Miss Shuangye's family background should at least be noble..."

"Meow?!"

"However, I think that given Miss Shuangye's rigid attitude, if she can't be the principal wife, she probably won't be willing to settle for the position of a concubine," Ange thought for a moment, "Well then, let's make her a mistress. I, the principal wife, hereby grant you permission to give her a living allowance of no more than 20,000 Imperial Dinars per month."

"Meow meow meow?!"

"Oh right, there are several small villas in the suburbs of Cangtao City. They used to be where the Grand Duke kept his mistresses. One of them can be reserved for Miss Shuangye. Of course, she can serve as a friendly representative between the Duchy of Penglai and the Duchy of Fayun, working as a military attendant in the palace. That way, I can see her every day... uh, I can see her."

"Meow meow meow meow meow?!"

Ange's words left Fish speechless: although he had heard many strange stories in the bars of Oasis City, none of them were like this.

Generally speaking, shouldn't a wife not hate her "lover" like she hates rats or cockroaches? How could she expect her husband to actively seek out a lover?! Anjie has the nerve to say such things; he himself wouldn't even dare tell Shuangye…

"Hmm, it's alright, my lord, you signed an agreement with me. So, your harem is also my harem, and everyone is under my management," Ange continued enthusiastically in a whisper. "As everyone knows, lovely girls are priceless treasures in this world. No one has any reason to refuse a treasure, right? So, if you could bring more of these 'treasures' home, it would be a great help to me in every sense of the word..."

"Uh..." Fish was about to say something when Huang Yan suddenly interrupted them, "That's enough, you two. We can talk about these things later. According to my calculations, the fish is now cooked to the perfect level for eating. Please eat it while it's hot."

"Ah, okay." Fish, whose mind was a mess, hurriedly grabbed a piece of grilled fish and took a big bite... but because he ate too fast, he burned his tongue.

"My lord, please slow down. We have plenty of time now." Ange took the half-eaten piece of fish from Fish's hand and gently blew on it. The aroma of the fish, the fragrance of the pine resin used as firewood, and the scent of the spices all wafted over to Fish with her fragrant breath.

To be honest, at least for that moment, Fish felt a joy and peace that he had rarely experienced before... This feeling even surpassed the delicious taste of the grilled fish, so much so that after finishing the whole piece of grilled fish, what he still remembered was Ange's breath just now.

However, just as he reached for another piece of grilled fish, Xiao Xing, who was chewing the fish in small bites and had just looked happy, suddenly perked up her big ears.

This is a sign that she has become alert.

"What's wrong?"

"There's some noise outside..."

"Could it be an animal attracted by the scent?" Fish thought of what Frostleaf had mentioned earlier... and then he realized something.

Frostleaf, who had been standing guard with a knife, has vanished!

"Huh? Warrant Officer Frostleaf?" Fish exclaimed in surprise. "Where did she go?"

"She seemed to have gone that way just now." Xiaoxing pointed in the direction of the sawmill. At the same time, her arm armor had transformed into a short crossbow and a pistol for combat. "I also heard a sound coming from that direction."

"Is there anything inside the sawmill?" Fish's face darkened. "Xiao Luo, Peanut, you two and Ange stay here. If things don't look good, immediately go back and start the hovercraft's engine. I'll go investigate."

"Are you kidding me?" Anjie casually took off her military green cloak, revealing "Golden Soup," which was transforming from a close-fitting bulletproof vest into a Renaissance-era plate armor. "I'm my husband's strongest shield, how can I retreat first?"

"I want to go too!" Xiaoxing raised a hand.

"but,

"What Lord Fish said is indeed true," Mint said. "The hovercraft is our storage place for supplies and equipment, as well as our main means of transportation, and it cannot be lost. Please allow me to go back and keep watch, just in case."

"Agreed." Ange nodded, and her three maids immediately and swiftly packed up the barbecue equipment and retreated towards the hovercraft—of course, Fish knew very well that this was not an excuse for Mint and the others to escape, but simply part of their highly professional "service."

After preparing for battle, Fish cautiously made his way to the sawmill. Although the ground was still quite dry at this time of year, Frostleas had left very clear footprints thanks to the abundance of moss and lichen.

Clearly, Frostleaf first approached the sawmill, but did not enter it. Instead, it turned a corner at the edge of the sawmill and entered a shed.

These wooden huts were all makeshift dwellings for sawmill workers. Although they appeared to be less than a person tall at first glance, they were actually semi-subterranean structures with much more spacious interiors. A wooden wall divided the interior of these dwellings in two sections: an outer room for eating and warming by the fire, and an inner room for sleeping.

In addition, many shacks have deeper cellars underneath for storing daily necessities, which also means that they can hide many other things.

"Frostleaf? Frostleaf, are you inside?"

Fish cautiously advanced while maximizing Phoenix Flame's detection capabilities, not missing any possible movement, and quietly calling out to Frostleaf.

No one answered, but a rustling sound came from the cellar, indicating that someone was moving around down there.

"Look, she's in the cellar," Ange said. "She actually crawled down there so easily; she's quite a mischievous child."

"Maybe the thing she was chasing just happened to hide in the cellar?" Fish muttered to himself as he walked to the entrance of the cellar—a hole located in the center of the house next to the hearth. The wooden planks that had covered it were gone, and a ladder was placed on the edge of the hole, its lower half hidden in the thick darkness.

For some reason, as he approached the cellar entrance, Fish suddenly felt a vague unease. Although he didn't really believe in sixth sense, he couldn't deny the existence of intuition.

And on many occasions, his intuition is very accurate.

"Meow!"

This time, it was thanks to his intuition a few seconds beforehand that Fish was more cautious as he approached the cellar entrance and immediately took evasive action the moment he heard the unusual noise below, which allowed him to narrowly avoid an extremely dangerous attack.

If his movements had been a few hundred milliseconds slower, the blow would have struck right in the center of his forehead, causing serious injury even if it didn't kill him instantly.

What attacked his forehead with ferocious force was a whip-like object with a sharp blade. It looked like the tentacle of some cephalopod mollusc, or the stinger of a hymenopteran insect… or more accurately, a combination of the two. However, what truly surprised Fish was the other end of this whip-like object.

It actually grew on the spine of something that looked like a bear!

"What the hell is that?" The sight before him was so visually overwhelming that Fish couldn't even remember what to do next: the creature hiding in the cellar wasn't "like a bear," but simply an ordinary Asiatic black bear. Like all Asiatic black bears, it had a "V"-shaped "collar" on its chest, clearly identifying itself.

However, ordinary Asiatic black bears certainly don't grow two whip-like appendages with sharp, barbed stingers on their backs, let alone stab them out at supersonic speeds. Of course, the creature's constant drooling and the wriggling of tiny tentacle-like objects in its ears and even the corners of its eyes are also not things that ordinary black bears would do.

"A chimera?" Fish muttered.

"No!" Huang Yan said, "Be careful!"

The strange black bear suddenly leaped out of the cellar with movements incongruous with its bulky size, landing in front of Fish and Ange.

Although Fish had heard that bears could be even more agile than dogs when necessary, leaping out of a three- or four-meter-deep cellar and landing on its hind legs in front of him was something no ordinary bear could do. Fortunately, after his initial surprise, Fish recovered and realized the correct course of action.

That is, just shoot this guy on the forehead.

However, although Fish moved quickly with the help of Phoenix Flame, the strange bear was even faster: when Fish aimed at it with the ion gun built into his arm armor, the bear actually bent its torso backward 90 degrees, just like a character in The Matrix dodging a bullet, barely avoiding the scorching plasma!

"Ancestors above!" Ange exclaimed softly, "What the hell is this?!"

"Typical vertebrates, especially large terrestrial vertebrates, would hardly be able to make such a move—it would severely damage their spine," Huang Yan said. "However, I have a rough idea of ​​one possibility."

"What possibility?" Fish asked.

"Let's deal with this guy first, then we can talk about this!" Ange suddenly rushed to the black bear, which hadn't yet straightened up, and threw a punch directly at the top of its head—since she didn't intend to engage in a fierce battle in this abandoned village, she didn't equip herself with any of those external weapons.

Even so, the "Golden Soup" combat armor, while lacking in both agility and durability, is only passable in terms of strength enhancement, aside from its protective capabilities.

Although Anjie usually acts like a quiet, unsporty young lady from a wealthy family, and even during her daily armored warrior training, she mainly focuses on simulating various shooting weapons, her punch still fully embodies the essence of stability, accuracy, and ruthlessness.

With a single blow, the black bear's head, from the lower jaw upwards, was blasted off, spraying out a large amount of red and white matter; its entire brain was shattered. It had undoubtedly suffered a fatal injury. Its heavy body staggered, then collapsed…

No, that didn't happen.

Despite the fact that the nerve center responsible for thinking and controlling behavior had been liquefied by Ange's heavy punch, the black bear with only half a head did not fall down! On the contrary, after grabbing the wall, it quickly regained its balance and swung the two "whips" behind it again.