Everyone's a Catgirl! Side Quest: A Knight's Code (Patreon)

Author's Note: Thanks to NDJack for sponsoring this chapter!

Ceres stood at attention—her back straight, hands tucked behind her—while her Lady Captain Aline marched along the row of recently graduated [Magic Knight]s, carefully observing each one of them. A merchant had recently come to them in request for aid, and it was Aline’s duty to ensure that the proper [Magic Knight] was selected to protect the harried merchant during her return to Venicia.

Aline’s red hair bounced in her ponytail while she marched in silence. Just as Ceres was drawing breath to relieve the tension in her muscles, Aline stopped in front of her.

“Lady Ceres,” Aline said.

“Yes, Lady Captain,” Ceres replied, maintaining her gaze past the captain.

“Will you accept the Quest of protecting Shamina during her voyage?”

Ceres’s chest swelled with pride. “I would be honored to protect Shamina.”

Out of the corner of Ceres’s eye, Aline smiled ever so slightly. “Very good. Return to your quarters to prepare. I’ll have my aide sent to your room momentarily to finalize the details.”

“Thank you, Lady Captain.” Ceres curtsied.

“As for the rest of you, return to your prior duties.” The [Magic Knight]s began to move, and Aline snapped her fingers and pointed at one of the petite knights in the group. “Lady Mona, you and I need to have a word.”

Ceres retreated to her quarters to collect her items. She pondered what manner of beast could have frightened Shamina so. Rumors had spread that merchants were being ambushed on the roads, but few of them were able to report the shape or size these attackers took. Sorentina was worked to the bone trying to protect its own, and matters were made worse by the increasingly concerning threat of the Defiled.

A knock came at the door when Ceres was about to retrieve the poleaxe she kept on the rack against the wall. “Come in,” Ceres said.

“Lady Ceres?” A woman with vibrant golden eyes poked her head through the crack of her door. Ceres nodded her consent, and the woman slipped through the gap and gently shut the door behind her. “My name is Alison, aide to Lady Captain Aline. It is a pleasure to meet you,” she said with a curt nod.

Ceres smiled. “And I, you.”

“Shamina is adamant that she leave as soon as possible, so I will not waste either of your time. As I am sure you are aware, the frequency of attacks on the road has been increasing. Reports claim that it is a pack of Encroachers.” Alison shook her head. “Their details have yet to be discerned, but considering the nature of the attacks, it is safe to assume that they use subversive tactics. Lady Captain Aline insists that you use every tool available and proceed with caution.”

Ceres nodded curtly. “Your words are invaluable. Thank you, Lady Alison.”

“It is my pleasure.” She smiled and curtsied. “Is there any other way I may be helpful?”

“No. I shall take it from here.”

Alison’s smile widened. “Please be safe, Lady Ceres.” With that, she left Ceres’s room.

Once Ceres’s weapon and armor were tended to for any cracks, chips, or other imperfections, she marched out of the camp and onto the road that led west to Venicia. Outside the settlement were three catgirls waiting around a stagecoach. They wore loose-fitting clothes and bandanas over their heads. The closest one was impatiently tapping her foot.

“Are you the [Magic Knight]?” the one behind the closest asked.

“Yes,” Ceres said, nodding. “My name is Ceres. I will be your bodyguard for the journey.”

“Great. Name’s Shamina. This one’s Bethany, and the coach is Yunai.”

“Yo!” Yunai said, waving from the back.

“Thanks for helping us,” Bethany said so quietly that Ceres could barely hear her.

“You’ll be sitting up with Yunai to keep watch,” Shamina said.

“As you say,” Ceres said. She would have made the same suggestion.

“I’ll keep ya nice and busy during the ride,” Yunai said.

“Before we depart,” Ceres said, raising her hand, “do any of you have combat experience?”

“Limited, but yes,” Shamina said, shrugging. “I’m a [Scout], Bethany is a [Mage], and Yunai is a [Chemist]. Don’t count on us fighting unless we have no choice. That’s why we hired you.”

Ceres nodded. “I understand.”

“Great. Let’s get a move on.”

Ceres hefted the poleaxe over her shoulder and made her way to the coach’s seat. The wood squeaked with her added weight, and Yunai hopped up to take the spot next to her. Bethany and Shamina entered the stagecoach, and once everyone was accounted for, Yunai whipped the reins, urging the mule to start moving.

“So, you been a [Magic Knight] for very long?” Yunai asked mere moments after the carriage started moving.

“I have not,” Ceres answered honestly, shaking her head. “I graduated last week. This will be my first Quest.”

Yunai whistled. “Gotta hand it to you, I could never do that.”

 “I am of the belief that any one catgirl can accomplish any dream they set forth before them, so long as they are willing to put in the effort.” Ceres thought back to the unruly kitten she once was. Goodness, she had been such a troublemaker. “I was not simply born like this.”

“Yeah, but you Shi Island girls are always a determined lot.”

Ceres blinked and gaped slightly. “Are you not a Shi Island resident?”

Yunai shook her head. “Hardly. No offense, but I can hardly stand, ah, the culture around here. I’m from San Island. As are my sisters.”

Ceres glanced into the window behind her. “Those are your sisters?”

Yunai nodded. “Sure are. All two of ‘em.”

“I never would have guessed,” she giggled.

“Why’s that?”

“You all have such distinct personalities.”

Yunai chuckled. “You get that from us in only the first few minutes?”

“Yes,” Ceres said excitedly. “As a [Magic Knight], you learn how to spot the unsaid. The body speaks quite loudly if one simply pays attention.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we got you on our side, then. Hope it doesn’t come down to a fight. But if it does, I’m sure glad to have you.”

“I will do everything in my power to keep this carriage safe.”

Yunai continued to keep up the conversation as the carriage rolled forward. The hours went on, and soon the sun fell and gave way to the moon. Chirps of insects permeated the air, and a cool breeze chilled Ceres’s cheek. With darkness upon them, Shamina stretched out of one of the wagon’s windows and lit the lantern that hung beside the coach’s seat. She retreated back inside as soon as it was lit.

Now that night had fallen, Ceres was on full alert.

She kept her poleaxe wedged against the carriage and a divot on the coach’s platform, her hand never leaving its side, ready to counterattack at a moment’s notice. The forests of Shi Island had always been dangerous, even without the threat of the Defiled looming on the horizon. Any Shi Island resident knew the dangers of traveling at night, knowing that behind every tree or shrub could be a lurking Encroacher, waiting for its next meal.

Any [Magic Knight] who assumed Encroachers were nothing more than mere Experience Points was a foolish [Magic Knight] indeed.

“Do you think—” Yunai started.

Ceres raised a hand to silence her, then shook her head. Yunai nodded, seeming to understand the importance of silence, and continued to observe her right while Ceres maintained a watchful eye on her left. The wagon wandered through the night, the lantern casting a gentle amber glow over the blades of grass that licked at the road’s edge.

“What is that?” Yunai whispered. “Do you hear that?”

Ceres’s ears perked up. She could hear it too. At first, she had thought it to be the wind playing with the leaves. But the sound was not so simple—it was much too erratic, too weighty.

“Do not halt the carriage,” Ceres whispered back when Yunai loosened her grip on the reins. Yunai nodded and snapped the reins to urge the mule faster while Ceres pushed the back of the poleaxe’s head away from the carriage. The blade glinted in the moonlight, and the leather beneath her gauntlet squeaked with her grip. “Something is watching us.”

“Saoirse, protect us,” Yunai said quietly.

The rustling continued to move forward, bush to bush, tree to tree. Whatever was pursuing them was keeping pace. The metal of Ceres’s poleaxe clinked as she adjusted it in both hands. Encroachers were clever beasts, and they were smart enough to understand when their meals were in jeopardy.

Ceres closed her eyes, focusing on the thread of magic that fueled her ice Spells. A chill swept over her arm, and as she opened her eyes, a blue-white mist surrounded her gauntleted hand.

“It comes!” Ceres cried, rising to her feet. A large wolf snarled as it barreled out of the bushes, lunging for Ceres when it broke the forest’s threshold. “[Icicle Shard]!” She extended her hand toward the creature, and three large shards of ice spewed forth from her palm, one lodging itself into the creature’s face and the other two penetrating its chest. The Encroacher squealed as it rolled away back into the bushes.

“What in Saoirse’s name was that?” Yunai shouted.

Ceres shook her head. “A wolf of some kind!” The wagon raced down the road, and Ceres clenched her teeth as she saw the upcoming hill. “Be prepared to fight!”

“What? I don’t have a weapon!”

“We hired you to fight,” Shamina yelled as she stuck her head out of the wagon’s window. “It’s your job”—she pounded her fist on the rim of the windowsill—“to keep them off of us!”

“Wolves are not solitary hunters!” Ceres said. “Where there is one, there is sure to be many.”

“That’s not our problem! You better figure out—”

The sudden crash of glass startled Ceres.

“Uwaaaahhh!”

Ceres’s blood turned cold at the sound of Bethany’s cries. She clamored over the top of the wagon and gripped the railing to steady herself. She watched in horror as another wolf clamped its jaws around Bethany’s throat, scraping its paws against the wood, drenching her clothes and hands in dark scarlet.

Adjusting her footing, Ceres reached over the side with her poleaxe, one-handed, and stabbed toward the wolf. By the grace of Saoirse, the point found its mark and tore through the wolf’s head, shearing it in half and releasing its grip from Bethany. Shamina emerged from the window, pushing away what remained of the wolf, and pulled her sister back inside.

“Bethany!” Shamina’s screeches sent chills rolling across Ceres’s skin. Blood ran down the broken windowsill, staining the wood as it streaked backward with the wagon’s momentum.

The wagon began to ascend the hill, and Ceres clutched the front railing for support. She remained on one knee, her poleaxe ready in her left hand. As the wagon slowed, the sounds of howling wolves followed. Ceres clenched her teeth and looked over her shoulder to find three more wolves in pursuit. They were little more than a few paces away from catching them.

Ceres shifted to the back of the cart and wedged her boot against the back railing to avoid falling off. Then she cried, “[Icicle Shard]!” Three shards of ice flew toward the pack. The first struck one of the wolves’ paws, but the other two narrowly missed their targets. With two wolves still on their tail and [Icicle Shard] on cool down, Ceres gripped the shaft of her poleaxe under her arm, ready to stab if they lunged.

The moon glistened in their eyes, and in a burst of black smoke, the two Encroachers were gone.

What?

Ceres looked over the ledge to her left to see one of the wolves keeping pace with the carriage. She quickly shifted her weight to the right to see the other wolf on the opposite side. Loosening the grip under her arm, she lifted the poleaxe and thrust at the wolf. It darted into the woods to evade the attack, and when Ceres moved to intercept the other wolf, it was already gone.

Where did they go?

Her brow furrowed, she returned her attention to the road ahead, inhaling through clenched teeth when she saw what awaited them at the top. Another wolf, several times larger than any of its kind, narrowed its gaze at the wagon. They were unprepared for this. She was unprepared for this.

“Turn around!” Ceres said.

“Don’t have to tell me twice! Come on, Jenny!” she cried to the mule, adjusting the reins to turn her back. Halfway through the turn, an explosion of black smoke briefly surrounded the carriage. Ceres guarded her face for the briefest of moments, only to be met by a wolf with its jaws ensnared around Yunai’s forearm. “Get it off of me!”

Ceres moved to stab the wolf, but Yunai’s abrupt jerk of the reins caused the carriage to tip on its side. The sudden shift in momentum took Ceres’s footing out from under her, and her head struck the railing on the way down, speckling her vision in tiny white spots. She managed to catch the railing in her dazed state, and her shoulder cried out in pain. The carriage slid down the hill, the mule screaming and whining through the chaos. Yunai was knocked from her seat along with the wolf and tumbled into a nearby brush.

“Yunai!” Ceres cried. She looked over her shoulder and prayed to Saoirse that the carriage would tip no further. The muffled groans and cries of agony stemming from within the box chilled her to the bone, and the brush flanking them foretold that more of the abominable creatures were lying in wait for their moment to pounce.

The carriage slowed to a stop as it reached the bottom of the hill. Within seconds, the wolves were upon the carriage, three of them darting to the defenseless mule. There were only a few seconds of whining, followed by the sound of snapping and chewing.

Ceres dropped to the ground, face to face with four more of the Encroachers. Her head throbbed, and she shook it in hopes of vanquishing some of the spots clouding her vision. She leveled her poleaxe at the wolves just as one darted to attack. She spun to her left and swiped the head of her axeblade at the Encroacher, severing head from body. Two more pounced, each from opposite sides. She hobbled backward, spraying both of her foes with an [Icicle Shard], killing one and wounding the other.

“Shamina! Bethany! Are you okay?” Ceres yelled.

She could hear nothing.

Damn these beasts! The wounded wolf whimpered away while the fourth took two paces back, its snout pointed at the ground. Then it exploded into a cloud of black smoke, vanishing without a trace. Where’s the large one?

Ceres panted and walked forward a couple of paces to better see her flanks. Wood whined behind her, and a shadow loomed over her. As she turned around, she saw the large creature from before. It bore down on her with piercing white eyes, its coat of fur dark and glossy. The full moon hung behind its head, casting its fur in an otherworldly glow.

It finally dawned on her what she was fighting. She’d read about them before, but she had never seen one, as they were nocturnal hunters. They could vanish into clouds of smoke and ambush their prey seemingly out of nowhere.

A sootshade wolf.

The Encroacher exploded into a cloud of black smoke. Ceres spun around, and the beast lunged forward with one of its clawed paws. Hissing through her teeth, Ceres veered to her right. The beast’s nails cut through the first layer of her maid’s uniform, drawing deep marks upon her armor. The sootshade wolf attacked with its other paw immediately after, and Ceres swiped her poleaxe at it, carving two of its toes away.

The wolf snarled and whined in equal measure, snapping its terrible jaws at her. Ceres stumbled into the bush behind her and sought refuge behind three of the large trees between them. Her heart pounded against her chest as she kept herself flush against the bark, licking her lips, trying to formulate a plan.

A thread. She could see a thread in her mind’s eye. The same threads that appeared whenever a Skill Point was available. I must have earned it when I killed the wolves. As she concentrated, more threads appeared, each of them governing a Skill in the [Magic Knight] tree. Two of the threads—[Invoke Frost] and [Icicle Shard]— glowed a faint blue, indicating they had been chosen prior. She imagined reaching out another thread, the one she knew as [Titan of Ice], and gripped it.

Barely three seconds had passed. She exhaled a puff of white air, looked around the tree, then darted forward through the brush. The sootshade wolf followed her, sticking to the road.

It must know that I am here to protect them. It knows I will return.

“[Invoke Frost]!” At her command, an icy-blue mist covered the axeblade. She watched the wolf as she ran, then dug her heels into the ground and ran toward the road. As soon as she parted the bushes, the sootshade wolf was there, mid-pounce.

“[Titan of Ice]!” Ceres cried.

The mist around her weapon disappeared, and a crystalline sphere encompassed the area around her. The wolf’s paw struck the barrier, and a sound like shattering glass rang in her ears. The barrier broke into shards and turned to dust, sweeping over the area around her. Where the wolf’s fur was previously dark, it was now coated in thick ice. It dropped to the ground as if it had run into a wall, and three of its legs shattered on impact.

Reduced to nothing more than an ice sculpture, Ceres approached the front of the wolf and lifted her poleaxe. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but she was certain she saw the eyes of the wolf move. She looked past the wolf to see dozens of other, smaller eyes, looking at her. No doubt the glares of its kin. Ceres knew, however, that their glares meant nothing if their leader was gone.

She raised her poleaxe and chopped into the neck of the sootshade wolf. The first time resembled cutting into a boulder, but the second and third times met flesh and bone, severing the beast’s head from its body. The wolf’s head rolled to the side.

Ceres planted the butt of her poleaxe into the dirt. “Would any others come and face me?”

A few pairs of eyes considered it, growing larger as they moved forward. But as soon as one pair retreated, another pair followed.

One by one, they disappeared into the woods.

---

“This is most tragic,” Lady Captain Aline said as she considered Ceres’s story. “Henceforth, no [Magic Knight] shall be permitted to journey alone.” She shook her head. “The dangers on the road are worsening every day. We should count ourselves lucky that you managed to survive.”

It pained Ceres that she couldn’t agree with her captain. She stood before her captain, bandaged and with her arm in a cast. Her poleaxe—stalwart as it was—had taken significant damage during the fight and would have to be replaced. What pained her the most, however, was knowing that two people died under her protection. In the end, only Shamina made it out alive.

“Lady Ceres. I can see it written on your face,” Aline said. “You are not to blame for this. Few [Magic Knight]s could fight off as many sootshade wolves as you had.” The chair’s legs whined against the stones as she rose to her feet and rounded the desk. She placed a consoling hand on Ceres’s shoulder. “You did well.”

“With all due respect, Lady Captain, I disagree.” She kept one hand cupped where her other hand would normally be if it weren’t resting in a cast. “We should have stopped the carriage when we came to the hill.” Her eyes welled. Two lives were gone because of her. “We should have stood our ground.”

Aline crossed her arms, observing her for a time. “Lady Ceres. Let me say, you are one of the finest [Magic Knight]s I have ever helped train in my career. You are skilled, intelligent, and you proudly wear our island’s three pillars on your shoulders at all times.” She drew a breath through her nose. “However, you are still very young. You’re going to make mistakes—a lot of them. Someday, you may lose someone very important to you. And still, you will need to keep walking, keep fighting. For them. Please try to be kind to yourself.”

Ceres nodded. “May I be excused, Lady Captain?”

“Yes,” Aline said after a pause. She returned to her seat as Ceres walked out of the room, and using her good hand, Ceres shut the door behind her.

The image of Yunai tumbling into the woods with the wolf, the amount of blood when Bethany was attacked, all of it still haunted her. She marched back to her quarters, determined and resolute in her convictions.

I will never forget what happened.