The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Nearby? A whole platoon of infantry?" Fish slowly repeated these two sentences, then glared angrily at Moonbeam, who had now become Xiaoxing. "Hey, you! What were you planning to do to us?"

"No, no, that's not true!" Yue Die quickly averted her gaze, practically slapping the words "I have a guilty conscience" all over her face. "I...I...I...I am the daughter of a marquis, a person of noble birth and high status, how could I possibly have any bad intentions?"

"Ah, that's right, if you succeed, that's certainly true." Princess Fayun, Anjie, revealed her sharp canines and sneered at her.

"Um... I don't understand what you're talking about."

"At that time, you should report to your superiors that two military journalists from the Principality of Penglai, along with their assistants and the warrant officer in charge of their protection, were accidentally killed in an attack by 'bandits' or 'terrorists' on the edge of the refugee camp. Although you arrived in time with your men, you were too late. It was truly an unfortunate accident..."

"This...this...Your Excellency Ange, you're joking!" Yue Die gestured wildly, looking quite comical. "Well, this...this official...this official arrived at the scene with the Second Guard Platoon to protect and support you all! It wasn't because I held a grudge after the conflict with you, so I wanted to follow you into the forest, shoot you all, and then claim it was an 'accident' or something! Absolutely not!"

"Yeah, that's right, well said. Let's just assume that's the truth for now." Ange shrugged, too lazy to delve into the details—after all, things had come to this point, and Yuedie's original plans were no longer relevant. Because they were now literally tied together, even if they were grasshoppers on the same rope, their interests wouldn't be as aligned as they were now.

"Yes, it's good that you're willing to believe it!" Yue Die nodded vigorously. "In short, I realized at the time that the person you were looking for was likely the legendary 'jinx.' Therefore, as the local garrison commander, it was necessary for me to help you, just in case!"

"Hmm, Fish... oh no, Major Moon Butterfly, write the report to the Northland Garrison Command like this from now on," Ange suddenly pulled out a document. "Please sign here. Also, if you've adapted to this body, you'd better start preparing to handle official business as soon as possible."

"Um... okay," Fish suddenly felt dizzy—other men would probably be overjoyed for a while if they turned into beautiful women. But he just felt annoyed.

This is partly because Fish never wanted to be a military officer, a troublesome profession, and had no idea how to handle all sorts of messy official business; on the other hand... although Yue Die is a proper young lady, to be honest, she's not as good-looking as he was when he was dressed as a woman!

"I...I still hope to switch back as soon as possible. This body...is really not good enough."

"Fine! You dare complain about my health! You're just a commoner, you should be grateful to have the body of a marquis's daughter!" Yue Die, who had been timid and fearful just moments before, suddenly flew into a rage. "Tell me, what's wrong with me?!"

"Ah, I'm sorry, but you're definitely not as cute as Fish in his maid outfit." Ange smiled and leaned closer to Fish, teasing his new body's earlobe and collarbone. "But... this body has its own charm, if we can develop it properly..."

"Eh... we can talk about that later!" Fish was startled and quickly shrank to the side. "Let's talk about serious matters first, like... how I can get back my original body. Even if it's some kind of marquis's daughter, I'd rather not be her for life, meow!"

"Regarding this, I conducted a series of studies, deductions, and analyses before you woke up, and came to preliminary conclusions," Huang Yan replied. "As far as I know, this consciousness transfer has no time limit and will not automatically return to normal. But don't worry, your body can certainly be switched back. It's not difficult at all."

"Really?!" Fish's eyes lit up.

"But the prerequisite is that we need to find the consciousness implantation device that Miss Shana used to deal with you, and then recreate the process," Huang Yan said casually. "I'm 100% confident I can handle this, but there's a small problem..."

"...Miss Shana and Miss Melu have both run away." Sachi, who is currently using Fish's body, shrugged.

"Huh? They got away?"

"Yes. Although I prevented Ms. Shana from initially manipulating you to deal with others, the resulting chaos still caused problems—at the time, Ms. Tsukuyomi's guard platoon fell into chaos and panic after finding her unconscious from the commotion. To make matters worse, Ms. Shana used the 'Virtual Paradise' device integrated into that inflatable tent."

"That would be terrible..." Fish muttered.

"Yes. Because of the influence of 'Virtual Paradise,' Miss Yue Die's subordinates did not discover Miss Shana and Miss Meru's disappearance immediately, but they treated us as enemies," Shuang Ye spread her hands. "Although I know that Miss Yue Die was following us with malicious intent, my duty prevented me from taking lethal force against those soldiers."

"So, everything's been ruined like this." Ange sighed. "Miss Shana and Miss Meru managed to escape while we were busy fighting with Moon Butterfly's men, leaving us all as clowns..."

"That's impossible!" Fish shook his head. "Even if they could escape from our encirclement, they wouldn't have any transportation. Besides, girls that young shouldn't theoretically be able to enhance their strength with intelligent combat armor..."

"Yes, but unfortunately, someone provided them with a very suitable means of transportation," Ange shrugged. "At the time, there happened to be an armored unit patrolling the edge of the refugee camp. During the escape, Miss Shana chose to hijack one of the 'Gorlons,' and then..."

"Holy crap, you can do that?!" Fish was speechless... Of course, upon closer inspection, it's not surprising at all. After all, while "Gorlons" are widely used in modern armies, they are ultimately equipment from an old civilization.

For an old human being, and clearly not a simple one at that, controlling such a thing would probably be no more difficult than moving a finger.

But speaking of Shana, who exactly is she? Why is she in this refugee camp? What is her purpose? As we all know, the old civilization era ended ten centuries ago. Although the old humans were not wiped out by the "Three Heroes" and the rebellious new humans, they are said to have "disappeared into space." You can read the latest updated chapters of "The Final Odyssey: The Cat Boy's Fantastic Journey" without any issues on the "Renren Bookstore" APP, with over one million books available for free. Visit the APP's official website to see why, a thousand years later, genuine old humans would still appear.

Undoubtedly, Huang Yan knew what Fish was thinking and spoke up before Fish could ask, "I'm sorry, Mr. Fish, although I know some of the information, most of it cannot be revealed to you, at least not at the moment, because of your limited authority."

"Uh... then I'll just say what I can say." After spending so much time together, Fei Shi had gradually gotten used to Huang Yan's "I know but I can't tell you" routine.

"First, I can confirm that the old humanity should still exist: In the last half-century of the old civilization era, thanks to breakthroughs in faster-than-light engine design, humanity was able to conduct limited activities outside the solar system—outside, of course, beyond the boundaries of the Oort cloud. Probes flew past and landed on thousands of planets, dozens of which could theoretically support human life."

"So..."

"However, due to the limited time for development, these outer solar system colonies were very small in scale when the old civilization era ended. The colonies within the solar system were much larger, for example, on the Moon and Mars, there were 800,000 and 4.5 million people respectively, but they were still only a fraction of the Earth in the final stage of the old civilization era—although at that time, due to the continuous decline in birth rate and population migration, only 60 million old humans remained on Earth."

"Hmm." Not only Fish, but even Ange and the others showed thoughtful expressions—after all, even Ange was learning about this history for the first time.

"However, I can assure you that this Miss Shana cannot be a resident of any extraterrestrial colony. The reason is simple," Huang Yan said. "At the end of the old civilization era, the old humans in Earth and the near-Earth colonies in the solar system all disappeared—based on a certain agreement, when the new humans occupied Earth, the remaining old humans completely left the near-Earth colonies."

"And I guess you can't tell us the contents of this agreement?" Ange asked.

"Yes. Please understand." Huang Yan's answer was as expected. "I cannot say. But I can confirm that, according to the agreement, the old humans in the distant colonies are not allowed to return to the solar system until now. This agreement is stored with the highest level of authority in the navigation AI of all ships to ensure its implementation."

"Well... if this is true, then is Miss Shana an ancient human being hiding on Earth? Her family has been hiding somewhere, multiplying and thriving..." Frostleaf speculated.

"That's equally impossible. For reasons that I can't explain at the moment, I can guarantee with absolute certainty that there will be no more human activity on Earth after the end of the old civilization era," Huang Yan replied. "However, 'no activity' does not mean 'non-existence'."

"You mean... quiescent hibernation technology?" Ange suddenly said the word.

"Are you familiar with this technology? It's quite impressive," Huang Yan said. "The ancient humans had a way to halt life processes while maintaining biological activity. At the end of the old civilization era, tens of thousands of people were in a state of quiescence and hibernation for various reasons. Some of them were taken away by the ancient humans who evacuated the solar system, while a small number remained in ancient ruins around the Earth."

"So..."

"It's reasonable to assume that Miss Shana is one of those left behind. Given her age, she's unlikely to be an important researcher or administrator. She was probably rendered immobile due to some kind of illness," Huang Yan continued, offering his speculation. "Upon waking, her former human identity was detected, causing the autonomous weapons roaming the surrounding ancient ruins to automatically choose to protect her..."

"And the hunter we met earlier, his companions were killed by the autonomous weapon because they attacked Shana." Fish began to understand.

“That’s right,” Ange said. “Although Miss Shana is still a child, she may still know how to use some of the technological products from the old civilization era. After waking up, she probably panicked for a while, then grabbed everything she could and began to flee blindly.”

"And then?" Fish asked.

"The autonomous weapons in the ruins she was in, as well as in other ancient facilities around her, sensed her presence and came to her rescue when she was in danger. Thus, even though she was a frail girl, she successfully escaped the perilous wilderness. However, the autonomous weapons had limited capabilities and could not provide for her basic needs, so she had to seek help from others."

"After her initial few unfortunate encounters with hunters in the forest, she likely fled to the vicinity of Meru's orphanage and met Meru there," Frostleaf continued to speculate. "Meru probably took pity on her and disguised her with handmade animal ears and a tail, hiding her in the orphanage."

"So, Melu really is a kind girl." Fish bit his lip.

"Yes. Unfortunately, just a few days later, the colony near the orphanage was infected by the parasitic 'Tai Sui' and got out of control—and I have a feeling that these 'Tai Sui' suddenly became active on a large scale, which is probably related to Miss Shana," Ange said. "After the orphanage was attacked by the 'Tai Sui' host, the garrison troops, the 'Tai Sui', and the autonomous weapons that came to rescue Shana broke out into a melee. After they escaped, they were swept up by refugees and came all the way here."

"Then, although Shana's gadgets allowed them to hide outside the refugee camp, they couldn't conjure up food, so Meru had to steal military supplies," Fish concluded. At this point, aside from certain key moments, the whole story was quite clear. "I guess Meru intended to continue leading Shana down the river, but they couldn't cross. As for the reason..."

Everyone turned their attention to Yue Die—then, trapped inside Xiao Xing's body, she lowered her head shyly, just like the real Xiao Xing.

"Um...yes. The reason the soldiers at the checkpoint made everyone strip naked for inspection was to find out if any old humans might still exist," Yue Die said after stammering for a while.

"A clever approach. Even a typical 'Virtual Paradise' system can't simulate complex tactile sensations. So as long as they're stripped naked and touched all over, the Old Humans can't hide," Huang Yan commented. "Undoubtedly, although they haven't made it public, the Northwest Garrison Command knows about the Old Humans' existence and even wants to capture them."

"So what is their purpose?" Fish asked.

"I don't know either," Yue Die said. "My orders are limited to maintaining order in the refugee camp and searching for people without any New Human characteristics. I really know nothing else."

"She wasn't lying, I tested her," Huang Yan sneered. "It seems that the great daughter of the Marquis of Ten Victories is nothing special. Although she has the title of commander, she can only do some basic executive work."