Chapter 11: My Catgirl Summon Wanted Hazard Pay
Chapter 11: My Catgirl Summon Wanted Hazard Pay
At least this one believed in asking first.
The thought was still in my mind when I noticed Liora hadn’t moved. She was waiting, tail swaying in that slow rhythm that meant she was thinking about something she wasn’t saying — still waiting for my answer about payment.
[Manifestation Remaining: 18:34]
Eighteen minutes and thirty-four seconds.
She’d asked for payment. Negotiating future ownership of my cheek. Pretending she hadn’t been staring at my clean face like I’d personally offended her composure.
But she didn’t know how little time she had left.
"You have less than nineteen minutes," I said.
Liora’s tail stopped swaying mid-arc.
"You can see that."
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway. "The connection. The dimensional stability. It’s all there. Numbers, timers, grades." I paused. "I should have told you earlier."
Her ears angled back, then forward, then settled into something that looked like controlled irritation. "You should have."
"You’re not angry?"
"I’m annoyed." She crossed her arms. "Next time, tell me before my body starts dissolving."
"You’re not dying. The manifestation rules say you’ll return safely to your world with your memories intact."
Her ears perked forward. "That is comforting information you should have started with."
Fair. I should have.
"I’m new to this," I admitted. "The summoning. The class. All of it. I got the class less than two hours ago."
"From the goddess who groped you."
"Among other things."
"Your life is very strange."
"You keep saying that."
"Because it keeps being true."
I took a breath. "There’s more. The signature preservation—the thing that lets my class find you again—it has a threshold. If our connection isn’t strong enough when the timer ends..."
"You lose me."
"Not you. The path. The dimensional coordinates. My class forgets the way back."
She was quiet for a moment, her tail curling around her ankle in that tight way I was beginning to recognise as a tell for deeper emotion beneath a calm surface.
"So this isn’t about keeping me," she said slowly.
"No."
"It’s about being able to find me again."
I hesitated. Then: "Yes."
[Resonance updated.]
Trust: 14 → 17
Seventeen. Still not high. Still not enough to build a real partnership on. But climbing.
Liora drew one of her knives, the motion casual and practised, the blade appearing in her hand as though it had always been there.
"Then we should stop wasting time."
❖ ❖ ❖
The maintenance passage was barely wide enough for my shoulders.
Old pipes ran along the ceiling wrapped in crumbling insulation that had probably been dangerous even before the apocalypse. The air was stale and hot, thick with dust and something worse underneath it — the sweet-rot smell of old blood and older death. Claw marks gouged the walls at irregular intervals, some deep enough to expose brick.
Liora moved ahead of me, her Softstep making her nearly silent even on the metal grating, ears swivelling constantly to track sounds I couldn’t hear, tail rigid with the tip twitching in small controlled movements. I followed as best I could. Cleaner than before. Fed. Slightly stronger. But Level 3 with suppressed stats still wasn’t built for stealth, and my backpack caught against an exposed pipe.
The metal clang echoed.
Liora’s hand shot back and caught the strap before it could make a second noise. She didn’t turn around.
"You’re prettier when silent," she whispered.
"You were nicer when you were hungry."
"No. I wasn’t."
She has a point.
The passage ended at a heavy door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. Liora tested the handle — unlocked — and eased it open with the tips of her fingers, and the smell hit us both at once: rotting produce, spoiled meat, the chemical tang of cleaning products, and beneath all of it the iron weight of dried blood.
The grocery store’s stockroom. Grey daylight filtered through high, grimy windows. Overturned pallets. Scattered boxes. A dead survivor slumped against the far wall, one hand still reaching toward a fallen can of beans.
Liora checked the body without hesitation. She crouched beside it, closed the eyes with two fingers, and pulled a stained cloth from a nearby shelf to cover the face. Then she took what was practical — a key ring from the belt, a small flashlight from the pocket, a compact first-aid pouch still sealed in plastic.
She didn’t joke about the dead.
Good. Some things shouldn’t be funny.
The stockroom opened into the main store through a swinging door. Liora peered through the gap and held up three fingers.
Ash Rats. Three of them. Her whispered assessment came quickly: one in the nearest aisle, one circling near the registers, one climbing the shelves toward the high windows. The climber would spot us the moment we moved into the open. The aisle rat was the closest threat. The circling one was the wildcard.
"They’re coordinated," she breathed. "Not smart, but not stupid either. The climber’s watching. The others are waiting."
I scanned the stockroom. Metal cart. Loose shelf panel. Bag of flour mix, torn at the corner. Mop handle. Fire extinguisher mounted on the wall.
If we could isolate one at a time—
"The cart," I whispered. "Roll it across the doorway after the first one enters. Trap it in here with us."
"Two on one. Fast kill." Her ears flicked approval. "But the climber will see the cart move."
"Not if we give it something else to watch."
I grabbed the flour mix and the shelf panel. Liora understood immediately, slipping through the door with Softstep carrying her to the end of the nearest aisle, and a moment later a can clattered to the floor on the far side of the store.
The climber’s head swivelled. Liora was already back.
"Now."
The nearest Ash Rat — Level 2, grey fur smouldering at the edges — padded into the stockroom. It didn’t see us. Its orange eyes fixed on the dead survivor, the smell of old meat, the easy meal it thought it had found.
I rolled the cart across the door.
The rat spun, hissed, and spat a glob of burning ash. Liora was already moving, her Level 3 body flowing through the space with a grace that hadn’t been there two levels ago. The ash missed. Her knife didn’t.
[Class-Assisted Kill Confirmed.]
[Host remained within combat range.]
[Combat contribution verified.]
[Experience transferred.]
One down.
The climber had noticed the cart now. It chittered something that might have been a warning, and the circling rat responded, moving toward the stockroom door. But the climber was the problem — it was above us, working along the shelving units, positioning itself to rain ash from overhead.
"Left shelf," I said. "It’s climbing."
Liora’s eyes tracked upward. "I see it."
"Can you reach it?"
"Not without exposing myself to the other one."
I grabbed the mop handle and the shelf panel. "Then I’ll bring it down."
The climber scuttled along the top shelf, settling itself above the stockroom door. I wedged the shelf panel beneath the nearest rack and positioned the mop handle as a lever, and when the rat paused to aim its ash I slammed my whole weight onto the handle.
The panel knocked loose a stack of old inventory boxes. The boxes hit the shelf supports. The supports buckled.
The rat fell, landing hard on the concrete and dazed. Liora’s knife was in its throat before it could stand.
[Class-Assisted Kill Confirmed.]
[Host remained within combat range.]
[Combat contribution verified.]
[Experience transferred.]
Two down.
The third rat stared at us from the end of the aisle. Its orange eyes flickered from the dead climber to Liora’s bloodied knives to me, still holding the mop handle like an idiot.
It ran.
"Shit," Liora hissed. "It’s heading for—"
A deep, resonant growl rolled through the store.
"—the big one."
[Manifestation Remaining: 14:06]
Fourteen minutes. Two rats dead. One Level 6 monster now very awake.
Progress, but the wrong kind.