I, the little cat, am a substitute for others who are starving and thin

"Just stand there and don't move. You are not allowed to come any closer!"

Less than a kilometer away from Yimi's hiding place, a man with gold teeth riding on a horse dressed like Tong Dawei shouted at the 14-year-old blonde girl in front of him.

It's no wonder he's so unkind. It's just that the girl's identity is too sensitive. She's the wife of Stephen Steele, the organizer of this ultra-long-distance horse race.

Yes, this 14-year-old girl has a husband who is over years old.

After so many times of pursuit, the two men almost figured out that the purpose of this so-called unprecedented competition was nothing more than the largest shareholder of this competition, the US President Fani Valentine, who wanted to use people from all walks of life to help him collect the remains of the saint and then take it away again.

The girl anxiously shouted at them, "I came here because I heard that you two would appear on this route. Mr. Joestar, Mr. Zeppeli! Please help me. I can only rely on you now. Please save my husband!"

Although he agreed to the President's idea of ​​using the game to collect bodies, Stephen was not a bad person. He had a small dispute with the President because he did not want any murders to happen on the field, and even intentionally or unintentionally moved away the hot air balloon used to monitor Johnny and Jello.

Then, Lucy, who has been learning lip reading recently, used a telescope to secretly "hear" that the president had murderous intentions towards Stephen, the troublemaker.

Lucy is a girl with strong action ability. She did not sit still and wait for death, so after making a series of small moves, she was tracked down here by the President's subordinates.

Tears still hung in the corners of the girl's eyes. "It was Manden Tim who recommended me to you two, and... he may no longer be in this world."

Manden Tim, a Stand user who had a brief connection with Johnny and the others.

Despite this, Jero lowered his head and whispered to his companions, "What is this young lady doing? Does she think she can be treated kindly by us just because she's young? Johnny, we don't need to trust her."

As if she could see the two's distrust, the girl looked a little anxious. "I have information about the body's spine. In fact, it was in my hands just now!"

"what?"

"But, it was taken away." The girl's expression was a little stiff: "A thing that looked like a frog took it away."

That was something that broke her understanding. It was a... or rather a creature that looked like a toad and a catfish. It was almost twice as tall as her, and its tongue was more than five meters long.

But Lucy was also very glad that the body was taken away by the detective sent by the President, otherwise she might have been killed on the spot by the long tongue that pierced half of her body.

"Frog? Is it a substitute..."

"Jero, look!" Johnny suddenly discovered something and pointed in a certain direction.

On the ground not far in front and to the side, three simple patterns pieced together were abruptly engraved there. Even though the rain was so heavy, it still could not wash away the patterns engraved on the soil.

"It's the remains that point to this. There are actually three... The Stand user who didn't see the body and took it away hasn't gone far yet. Jero?"

Johnny noticed that his companion was not listening to him, but was staring at the marks on the edges of the three maps, thinking.

Following the other person's gaze, he could see a mark with a somewhat strange shape. As a talented horse racer, Johnny naturally recognized that it was a horseshoe mark, and it was the kind that was left not long ago.

The problem is there are only four.

Even if you open your field of vision, you can only see four hoof prints, as if a horse suddenly appeared and disappeared. In addition, the hoof prints of this horse do not have the shape of a horseshoe.

Chapter 3 Never Air Force

"Miaomiao Miaomiao!"

"You, me, him."

"ABCDEFG..."

"Yo~si."

The heavy rain stopped.

At nightfall, by the wilderness lake.

The chubby fur ball took somewhat rickety steps, opened its three-petal mouth and uttered clear and tender childish voices, practicing the foreign languages ​​it had just learned but was not yet proficient in.

Even if the system forced the basic language knowledge into it, it could only express some simple ideas like this since it had never spoken before. How could it be fluent just after mastering something that relies on practice?

The biggest benefit of this reward is that it can finally understand human language. Although it could understand a little before, most of the time it pretended not to understand its grandmother's teachings because it often got into trouble.

Yimi was in a good mood because he was trying to use his own "energy" to replenish that door. After replenishing, he would fall into a certain degree of fatigue and excessive hunger, but these could be recovered after eating and resting.

Although its seven-year-old knowledge prevented it from understanding the 0.2% in energy progress, the clever cat knew that as long as it kept replenishing energy, it would eventually be able to find a way home!

Cats don’t really understand the concept of “world”. They just know that this is the way to get home.

Let's put this aside for now. The most important thing is that it hasn't eaten for an hour. After replenishing all that energy, it will be hungry again.

Yimi lowered her head and sniffed the air. It had just rained, so it was more than twice as difficult to obtain information through her sense of smell than usual.

Then it seemed to sense something, moved its ears, and quickly turned its body to look at a big cat (human) with blue lipstick and holding a dark horse.

Both sides looked at each other for a long time.

Until the man grinned, revealing a row of gold teeth, and turned to look at his companions: "Johnny, look what I found? A cat that looks a lot like a panda. It seems we don't have to worry about lunch anymore."

"Meow!" Yimi, who understood what he said, instantly got angry and backed away while making threatening grunts at him.

My little cat is definitely not a good person!

"What nonsense are you talking about? Do you want to eat cat?" Johnny's forehead was covered with sweat. He grabbed Jello's clothes with one hand to prevent him from doing something that he couldn't understand.

"Don't take it too seriously, buddy. I was just joking. This cat is wearing something around its neck, so you can tell it's being kept by someone... You really do love animals. You were so enthusiastic when you were catching the rabbits. Where did that unscrupulous spirit go?" Jello stomped his feet forward a few times.

"Meow!"

Yimi ran away, and only turned around after running a long way away to find that the two men had not caught up with her.

"How can a rabbit be compared to a cat..."

"But I remember there were rumors that cats were messengers of the devil, right? There were also rumors in the Middle Ages that they would bring plague or something."

"It was the mass slaughter of cats that caused the plague to spread further..."

Yimi lay on the ground, watching them from a distance.

There was a strange feeling, not of danger or closeness. The strangeness came from their organs, namely the right eye and left hand, which seemed to have some kind of connection with Yimi's back.

Even a cat can guess that this is what the system requires us to collect.

"Meow?"

But Yimi didn’t know how to get these two things. It could feel that these things were inside their bodies. Did it have to dig them out?

It is common sense that a kitten cannot beat a big cat.

Unlike Yimi, these two people didn't seem to sense the remains on it.

Ignoring the kitten, who might have strayed from a nearby village, Jero took out his fishing rod. "Hey, Johnny, can you catch earthworms? I heard someone say sticking a pole in the ground and paddling it back and forth with something uneven can lure them out."

When running long distances, you must prepare enough food in advance. Even if food is insufficient during the competition, you should choose to hunt for game instead of choosing a time-consuming method like fishing.

The previous rain was really heavy, and the waterproof fabric was accidentally cut by Diego's claws during the fight, so part of the dry food was soaked and ruined. Unfortunately, they didn't find it until they left the town.

This was the only water source in the area near the wilderness. Due to the dry weather, the puddles left by the rainstorm didn't even accumulate until the next day. If they were lucky, they might even run into wild animals like this cat that were replenishing water. With their remote stand-ins, they didn't have to worry about not being able to catch food.

Anyway, it's getting dark now, and normally no one would be traveling at night. Shooting a few shots at this time won't delay the progress of the game too much.

Jero took out the soaked bread from his bag and threw it towards Yimi who was not far away.

Yimi lowered her head and sniffed it, then stretched out her claws to pull it aside in disgust.

It's a piece of junk, even dogs won't eat it.

"It seems like it just rained now, so this little trick won't be necessary..." Johnny didn't get off his horse, showing a somewhat embarrassed expression: "I'm going to the bathroom first. Can you help me set up my fishing rod?"

Because of a deserved shooting, his legs were paralyzed and he needed tools to support himself when going to the toilet, so even after such a long time of traveling together, he still felt embarrassed when talking about this.

"Go ahead, man. Remember not to run too far. If you see anything, just shout. If you come across a wild rabbit or a bird, remember to kill one. You can eat it, right?"

The President may send assassins at any time in secret.

It's called a fishing rod, but it's actually just a simple wooden stick made of rope and wire. I had no intention of making fishing a part of my survival plan, so naturally I didn't prepare a fishing rod.

But there won't be any big fish that can pull people apart in this kind of lake...

Just as he put Johnny's fishing rod away, Jero saw his own rod move. He quickly reeled it in: "Super lucky."

The result was a small fish that was not big enough to fill the gaps between teeth.

"Meow?" Yimi raised her head.

After hesitating for a moment, it cautiously approached, raised its head and called out in a coquettish voice: "Meow~"

I'm cute, give me fish.

"What are you looking at? I won't give it to you. Do you want to steal the fruits of my labor just by raising your head and shouting?" Jello pinched its face and shook it.

How come this cat doesn't even have whiskers?

"Meow." Yimi pretended not to understand.

Looking at this little ball of fur, Jello's playful spirit was piqued. He put his trophy away first. "There's a saying in the East that it's better to teach a man to fish than to give him a fish. Take this pole, and do you see the straw on the other side of the rope..."

He pretended to teach Yimi how to fish.

After that, he turned his head and said: "Okay, you have learned how to fish, go fishing by yourself and don't bother me."

"..."

Yimi lowered his head and stared at Johnny's fishing rod for a while.

Then I saw the fishing rod being pulled.

"Meow!"

Yimi bit the fishing rod and pulled it back hard. A fish twice as big as the one Jero had just caught fell ashore with its tail swinging.

"?"

There was confusion and shock in Jero's big eyes.

"Congratulations to the host for unlocking the achievement [Never Go Empty-Handed]. The reward is a copy of the 'Basic Fishing Manual'. The host needs to claim the physical reward themselves."

"Meow?" Yimi raised her head and then lowered it again.

eat first.

Then Jero saw the clever Yimi bite the fish off the hook intact, and used his front paws to casually slap the fishing rod aside and start eating the fish.

Who knew that this slap would just knock the fishing rod back into the lake, and then the fishing rod without even any bait started moving again.

"Meow." Yimi immediately let go of the fish in her mouth and went to pick up the next one.

"??"

The next fish came up, and Yimi continued to eat the fish, but the fishing rod that was put back moved again. Yimi hurriedly continued to reel in the rod, take out the fish, and put the rod down, and then the rod moved again.

In three minutes, the shore was filled with the smell of fish, although they were all small fish.

"???"

Jello slapped his face.

Are these fish trying to commit suicide today? So cats can actually learn to fish?

Jello was shocked and looked down at his rod which had not moved since the first fish.

He stared at the lake without looking at Yimi, whistling and reaching out to pull the fish caught by the other person to his side.

"Meow?" Yimi tilted her head.

Jero smiled again, revealing his golden teeth, and rubbed his fingers together. "This isn't stealing. I just taught you how to fish, didn't I? It's not unreasonable to ask for a small reward as a form of tuition, right? According to human rules, if you want to get something, you have to give something else in exchange for it. It's only fair."

Yimi blinked her big eyes and didn't think there was anything wrong with what Jello said. She often brought back dead mice for her mother to repay her for raising her.

Yimi looked down at the two small fish in front of her and the full bag that Jello had snatched away.

Anger arises from the heart, evil comes from the courage.

The cat jumped up and kicked Jello in the back. It was more brutal than Jello had imagined, kicking the 1.8-meter-tall man directly into the lake.

Jello emerged from the lake in a daze, wiping his face. "What are you doing? You ungrateful furball!"

He reached for the fishing rod and used it as a stick. Seeing this, Yimi grabbed the biggest fish and ran away, this time he really ran away.

“…Does it really understand what I’m saying? (⊙﹏⊙)”

"Jero, are there any enemies?"

At this time, Johnny came back from the toilet, looking around with confusion and vigilance to see if there was anything wrong.

"It's okay, it's okay. I just caught a really big fish. I've never caught one like that before." Jello put down the rod in his hand. "It was really big. It must have weighed at least 20 pounds."

Johnny looked down at the small fish on the shore again: "So many...Did you catch all of these?"

Jero was silent for two seconds, then nodded solemnly: "Yes, I caught them all. Isn't that impressive?"