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Isekai Terry TOD: Chapter 32 – Friend
🕑 Added 2024-07-06 08:18:39 +0000 UTCIt turned out that they did have cats in that world or something pretty close. At least a dozen of them came racing out of the alley like a silent feline tide before dispersing into the night like shadows. They weren’t exactly like the cats that he remembered from home, what with having four ears. However, seeing them made him feel oddly better. He hadn’t had a cat back on his old world. That had more to do with draconian lease policies than his personal feelings, though. He actually liked cats. The simple knowledge that cats or cat-adjacent creatures lived here restored a slender thread of hope that he wasn’t trapped somewhere that was inevitably doomed. He was about to turn and walk away when a much smaller form emerged from the darkness. It wasn’t quite young enough to be a newborn, but it was young. And it was limping on its stumpy, adorable legs.
Terry stiffened in place. He didn’t know for sure that the limp was his fault, but it seemed painfully likely. He had just thrown a grown man into the darkness. On the other hand, this had all the earmarks of a dozen animal-related tropes. He took a step back. The little beast looked up at him with big, wet kitten eyes that made Terry feel like a horrible person for not immediately providing it with comfort. He tried to shield his mind from the obvious telepathic control the pseudo-cat was exerting over him. It probably has fleas, or worms, or some terrible disease that only exists in a place where tropes are things living human beings have to put up with. I should just walk away. The kitten let out a plaintive little mewing noise and took a limping step toward him.
“I’m sure you’re just looking for your mother,” he told the kitten. “She won’t come back as long as I’m here.”
He turned and took a few steps before another little mew made him look back. The kitten had changed course and was now limping after him. He watched as the kitten took a few more limping steps before his heart couldn’t bear the sight of it anymore. Heaving a tremendous sigh, he stepped back to the kitten and crouched down. He held his hand out near the ground. Close enough that the kitten could reach it, but hopefully not so close that it would frighten the little thing. The kitten took another limping step or two, sniffed his hand a few times, and then inexpertly crawled up onto his palm. It immediately curled up and started to buzz with a soft purr. You don’t need a cat, Terry, he told himself. It’s going to need food and attention and probably a million other things you know nothing about. Just put it down and be on your way.
That was all great advice that he completely ignored as he nestled the warm little creature inside his robes. It’s not like food is that expensive. He started walking again, only stopping long enough to pick up the knife the chatty thug had dropped and to take the man’s coin pouch. The thug was still curled up like he’d just been kicked, but he managed to wheeze something out.
“That’s… that’s mine.”
The thug made a weak swipe for the coin pouch that Terry batted away.
“Let’s call it your idiot tax for the week,” said Terry.
He was nervous as he approached the gate, half expecting to see Gilvane or someone else waiting for him there. He also worried that the city guard wouldn’t let him out at night. He supposed that was something he should have asked someone about when he had the chance. He’d just been so intent on leaving, and then so distracted by anger or awkwardness that it just hadn’t occurred to him. Hanging around and asking questions like a know-nothing tourist just hadn’t struck him as a great idea when he was quite sure people were looking for him. Something that didn’t seem likely to change anytime soon. He was pleasantly surprised when the guards let him out. He just flashed his Adventurer’s badge and that was it. They did give him odd looks and asked him repeatedly if he was sure he wanted to leave at night. He just mumbled something about important business and gave them a wave as he walked through the gate.
They shut it behind him and threw a heavy bolt to make sure it couldn’t be opened. He assumed that meant they were worried about monsters roaming the night and getting inside the walls. It might have just been some general anxiety about the possibility, but it seemed far more likely to Terry that they were worried about something specific. There’s probably some awful thing out here. Of course, he’d hacked, slashed, and punched his way through a lot of awful things already. What were a few more, especially if it meant getting a head start on… Terry sighed. On everyone. He almost unconsciously slipped a hand inside his robe to gently scratch around the kitten’s ears. The intensity of the purring increased. Well, at least I have one friend here.
Terry took his time increasing his speed. He wanted to make sure the kitten wasn’t going to fall out of his robes if he was moving too fast. It moved around once or twice as he did, but seemed to decide it was secure enough and went back to napping and purring, obviously unconcerned with what its bed was doing. That was good because Terry wanted miles and miles behind him before he stopped to grab a few hours of sleep. He kept a sharp eye on the trees around him. Not that he could see much in the darkness. It just seemed prudent to him. Once or twice, he thought he caught a pair of eyes or some kind of movement out in the trees. He’d braced himself for violence. To both his relief and vague disappointment, nothing came charging out to challenge or eat him.
Stopping to sleep was a bare-bones affair. He’d slowly crept off the road and into the forest. It was nearly impossible to see anything, but he didn’t want to light a candle or lamp. That just seemed like a great way to draw all kinds of unfriendly attention. His eyes did adjust a little bit to the pervasive darkness beneath the thick canopy overhead. He eventually found a spot beneath a tree to wrap himself in a blanket. It was too dark to set up his primitive version of a tent, and he didn’t want to be too comfortable. Comfort would encourage him to sleep deeply. The canvas he hung over a rope to serve as a tent would block out the morning light and at least some sound. He didn’t want any sound muted. He wanted to wake up and get moving as soon as the forest started to come alive in the morning.
He slept fitfully that night. His dreams were disorienting things that mixed bits and pieces of his old life and his new life. He found himself fighting small versions of the foliasaur at one ofthe parks where he used to go hiking. Kemira was running a cash register at a fast food joint and complaining about political matters that had to come from the new world. He kept spotting the stupidly pretty people pretending not to be spying on him. It was almost a relief when he woke up in the morning. He sat up and had a fuzzy sense that something was wrong. The events of the night before came rushing back to him. A quick check inside his robe revealed the kitten was gone. He looked around frantically and checked the blanket to make sure it wasn’t still sleeping in it. A sick feeling overtook him as he thought that the kitten might have wandered off and gotten eaten by something.
Terry exhaled a relieved breath when the little thing pounced into view from behind the tree trunk. It wandered over to him. It was still limping but looked less distressed about it. He stroked the kitten’s head and it eagerly rubbed its face against his palm. Satisfied that the world was no less terrible than it had been before he went to sleep, he stood up and took a little walk to relieve himself. He stepped around the tree and came to an abrupt halt. There were half-eaten snake corpses littering the ground. Some of them were four or five feet long. The thought that these things had been mere feet from him was chilling enough, but a hard look at the injuries suggested that they had been made by an exceedingly small mouth with very sharp teeth. He glanced back at the kitten who was playfully batting at some bug it had found. He turned his gaze back to all the dead snakes. Terry stood there for a moment before coming to a firm decision. I’m not going to think about it.
Comments
ScarletIce
It's not about whether or not Terry made a statistically logical choice. It's about having a funny joke.
Robert Adams
Possible. But what were the chances? Yes, it could be actually super simple and easy to tear a hole through dimensions and universes and drag a person into an alternate world and give them incredible superhuman abilities and knowledge about the world. Cheap too. OR, it could be a once-in-a-millenium ritual that can only be performed in one direction at debilitating costs. I certainly wouldn't risk my summoner wanting a return on investment and not caring how they got it.
ScarletIce
Cat transforms into a loli catgirl and he just immediately runs away as fast as he can. Just completely abandons it without hesitation.
ScarletIce
How funny would it be if at the end of all of this, Terry learns that the people that summoned him would have just sent him home without a fuss if he hadn't run away and simply said he didn't want to be their hero. Like, they never bothered chasing him because him running away wasn't a big deal at all to them. They just kinda shrugged and did another summon after he booked it.
GreenB
I have a suspicion that some cosmic power heard about all these isekai tropes, and decided to try it to ease their boredom. Terry just happened to be the unfortunate victim.
ParoxysmDK
Hah loved the ending. Tftc
luda305
And then in 50 chapters, we can play the turn pet into human companion trope.
