The Final Odyssey, the fantastical journey of a cat boy

"Um... Karin? What do we do?" Alasia, terrified, grabbed Fish's arm after discovering the hysterical chaos around them. "What's going on?"

"What's going on? I already explained what's going on," Fish said impatiently.

"Huh? You mean... what you just said was true?! No way, no way?!" Alicia's eyes widened in disbelief.

"What do you mean you can't? Then tell me, what's going on here?!" Before Fish could finish speaking, the girl named Miyu, whom she had knocked down with her longbow, had already staggered to her feet—as the host of "Tai Sui," she wasn't going to fall so easily.

After hissing defiantly at Fish like an enraged beast, Miyu grabbed an arrow, grabbed another with her whiskers, and pounced on Fish, ready for close combat.

Of course, Fish didn't hesitate at all when dealing with a host that had already been parasitized. Even without the blessing of the Phoenix Flame, having experienced countless battles, his combat experience was already very rich, and he was still not afraid of such an opponent in a one-on-one situation.

Although the two extra weights hanging on her chest slightly reduced her agility, the muscle memory she had developed from years of practicing swift swordsmanship combined with Fish's combat experience proved extremely effective. In the instant she closed in on her opponent, Fish first used a baseball bat to deflect the first arrow aimed at his face with minimal movement to the side, then swiftly thrust the bat towards her opponent's chest as if wielding a sword.

Although a baseball bat is not a swift sword, this blow was still not enough to kill the "Tai Sui" hiding inside, but it at least successfully knocked the target to the ground. Then, before Miyu could get up, Fish had already broken her right wrist joint holding the arrow with a single blow, taken the arrow, and pierced her chest directly.

Having gained experience in eliminating a large number of "Tai Sui" hosts, Fish is now able to deal with these types of targets cleanly and efficiently, ensuring that the final blow effectively destroys the "Tai Sui" parasite within the opponent's body. This remarkably swift and clean movement, especially for a JK, naturally left Alicia dumbfounded.

"Don't be silly, come here! The crowd is coming!" Fish shouted.

"Ah, okay!" A bewildered Alicia hurriedly ran towards Fish—although they were initially surrounded by onlookers, putting them in an extremely disadvantageous situation, being surrounded near the archery club's booth was a stroke of luck: because archery demonstrations and competitions require a large space, even when surrounded by onlookers, the two could retreat to the side of the archery path where the targets were erected.

However, this retreat had its limits—as the surrounding crowd descended into chaos and began to flee frantically, many people, in their panic, overturned fences and dividing ropes, rushing into the archery club's area. Although the larger area gave Fish and Alicia some room to maneuver, it seemed they still couldn't escape being swept into the surging, chaotic crowd…

...until a yellow bus suddenly crashed into the tent at the end of the arrow path, sweeping away all the living people, "Tai Sui" hosts, and arrow targets in the way.

"Get out of the way!"

At the last second, Fish pulled Alicia back, saving her from being run over by the bus. The huge yellow school bus swept across half of the archery club's field with sparks and lightning, then, like a raging rhinoceros, it smashed through the crowd with tremendous force, leaving a bloody alley before finally crashing into an oak tree near the gymnasium and coming to a stop.

"Great opportunity! Charge out!" Huang Yan shouted immediately.

Of course, even if she hadn't said that, Fish and Alicia wouldn't have wasted the opportunity—before the blood-soaked "road" was filled with fleeing people, the two immediately dashed across the scattered, twisted corpses and ran to the yellow school bus.

"Get on this bus! It should still run!" Huang Yan continued giving instructions. "In the past, school buses in normal society were very sturdy!"

"Understood!" Fish immediately yanked open the car door... only to be struck in the chest by a twisted tentacle.

Since the Phoenix Flame could at least act as a bulletproof vest, providing protection for the torso of the body Fish had "borrowed" from Moon Butterfly, the hollow spikes at the tip of the tentacle didn't cause immediate direct damage. However, it still managed to send Fish flying backward, causing him to crash heavily off the vehicle.

Then, a dark figure wearing a tattered driver's uniform leaped out of the school bus with a "whoosh." The fingers of his hands had mutated nails that looked like long daggers, and they looked like a pair of miniature wings made of sharp blades.

Then, a dark figure wearing a tattered driver's uniform leaped out of the school bus with a "whoosh." The fingers of his hands had mutated nails that looked like long daggers, and they looked like a pair of miniature wings made of sharp blades.

"Oh no—"

Before Fish could even instinctively cry out in alarm, a flashing afterimage suddenly struck the dark figure—it was Alicia. Just moments before, as she fled along the "bloody alley" carved out by the bus, she had untied something wrapped in cloth from her back.

That was... a long sword very similar to Frostleaf's broken beloved sword.

"My God... Did girls in high school back then carry around weapons like this?" Fish swallowed hard as he saw the driver, severed in two at the chest, fall to the ground with a thud. "It looks even worse than Frostleaf's knife..."

"Are you stupid! Use your brain!" Huang Yan reverted to her usual sharp tongue. "Do you think there's such a school? It's all set up specifically for death games! And the archery club just now too, their longbows, including the arrowheads, are practically the weapons of 15th-century British longbowmen!"

"My goodness..." Fish muttered, even though he had no recollection of who his mother was.

Meanwhile, Alicia didn't stop. Stimulated by a surge of adrenaline and endorphins, she was already in battle mode, fighting the other three people who had rushed out of the car. These three "Tai Sui" hosts were all young female students, some with thorny tentacles growing from their bodies, others with bone blades sprouting from their arms. However, they had no chance against the sharp and precise strikes of Alicia's longsword.

In just a few seconds, the three "Tai Sui" hosts, along with the parasites in their spines, were cleanly and efficiently sent to another world.

"Ugh... Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh—" After defeating her last opponent, Alicia, who had been like a ferocious beast just moments before, suddenly knelt down and began to vomit violently!

"Hey?! What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell?!"

"No... I just... um..." Perhaps because she hadn't eaten anything since being awakened, Alicia only vomited a pool of translucent stomach acid and mucus in the carriage. Although it smelled terrible, it wasn't too "stimulating." "I just..."

"I see, this is the first time you've actually killed someone, right?" Fish asked.

"Gulp... Ugh... Hmm..." Alicia vomited another mouthful of thick stomach acid, then nodded vigorously—of course, Fish had already expected this answer. After all, although this girl may have been "born" in a biological sense thousands of years ago, her actual age was probably less than an hour. Of course, she couldn't possibly have any experience in "that aspect."

"That explains it." Fish swallowed hard—after repeatedly participating in battles and exchanging ideas with experienced people, he knew very well that killing others was an instinctive taboo for most people.

Of course, he himself wasn't actually a bloodthirsty killer. The reason he could fight without restraint was because he had already understood the nature of the "Tai Sui" and knew very well that those hosts could no longer be regarded as living "people." However, for Alicia, who was still in a state of chaos, it was normal to feel nauseous and disgusted after the fighting instincts triggered by the life-or-death situation subsided.

"Listen, Alicia," Fish swiftly retrieved a pre-prepared shard of glass dagger from the pink rabbit backpack and accurately hurled it into the man's chest as yet another host, dressed in a purple bodysuit and wielding a giant pair of gardening shears, charged at the bus. The man immediately collapsed backward in a bizarre posture, like a puppet with its strings cut. "I understand how you feel, but this isn't the time for such wild thoughts!"

"Well?"

"Look at these people!" Fish poked one of the men's cleanly severed chest cavity with a baseball bat, then pointed to a strange, translucent gel-like substance attached to the spine and the severely mutated limbs. "They're already dead! They're just shells controlled by these parasites. What you just did only gave them a release."

"Uh..." Alicia was still completely bewildered, seemingly unable to process what was happening. Seeing this, Fish grabbed her cheeks and began to pull them forcefully to both sides.

"Anyway! If you want to live, don't think nonsense!" she emphasized, pinching the other person's soft, tender cheek. "Just follow me!"

"Ah...okay, okay!" Alicia nodded, a strange look of joy on her face. "I...I'll do as you say, Karin."

"Very good." Fish said, letting out a soft sigh—he never expected that the ability to read people he had cultivated in the bars of Oasis Harbor would come in handy at a time like this!

Although Alicia appears to be quite generous and outgoing, she is actually a person who lacks initiative. As the first person she meets after her "real" life begins, Fish, despite having no prior connection with her, actively seeks out him among hundreds of "classmates" to act together. This shows that deep down she longs for someone to stand by her side and tell her what to do.

Such people, lacking initiative, may be unreliable at other times—especially when they need to complete complex tasks alone. However, they make excellent teammates in crisis situations: simply give them instructions, and they will follow orders in a mind-numbing state, without saying or doing anything reckless or causing trouble, making them truly worry-free.

"Not bad. Hmm... this car should still work; its engine isn't broken," Huang Yan said. "Kid, can you drive?"

Fish nodded: During the time he spent exploring the Twilight City ruins and staying temporarily in the Kingdom of Penglai with Ange, in addition to the basic cultural lessons provided by Huang Yan and the noble knowledge and etiquette taught by Ange, Mint and her two female officials also taught Fish some very special skills—weapon assembly and use, as well as vehicle driving.

Although Mint used a lightly armored training vehicle for the demonstration, the fundamental way of driving a car hasn't changed in over a thousand years. After restarting the engine, Fish first shifted into reverse to separate the car from the tree it was "clutching" against, then turned and drove onto the campus's circular road.

Perhaps because the school festival venues are mainly concentrated in the playground, small park, and open spaces around the teaching buildings, there are relatively fewer people on this circular two-lane route—but there are still some. Every now and then, girls who have hastily escaped from the initial chaos will run onto the road, sometimes followed by "Tai Sui" hosts dressed in various strange costumes.

"Alicia, you're in charge of watching behind me. If any of those weirdos jump onto the car, slice them in two." Fish gave Alicia this order as a "Tai Sui" host wearing a bikini and trailing a demon tail with a heart-shaped tip tried to jump onto the car window but was instead run over. "I need to focus on driving, understand?"

"Y-yes!" Upon hearing Fish's instructions, Alicia snapped out of her daze and returned to "battle mode." She regulated her breathing, raised the longsword—far superior in both sharpness and resilience to ordinary blades—and stood guard behind Fish.

Fortunately, although the "Tai Sui" hosts chasing the survivors onto the roundabout appeared several more times, none of them were able to successfully jump onto the bus—the school bus's tall body made it a mobile "fortress" to some extent, and its defensive effect was absolutely top-notch!

"Phew...it feels so good to drive a big truck," Fish muttered after another "Tai Sui" host dressed in black gothic Lolita fashion was hit hard, bounced against the windshield, and splattered a lot of blood and slime. "Thank goodness, these guys don't seem to be very organized right now. If they teamed up like the previous guys, even if they just set up a few roadblocks, we'd be in trouble."

"Don't worry about that," Huang Yan said, "they won't do that."

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