Chapter 60: Ranger

After dinner, Sam and I take a quick shower, which was quite a bit less heated than last time, and prepare for our next VR adventure.

“Hey Sam,” my sister peeks into the room.

“Mhmm?” Sam nods.

“Don’t forget that Hilda will private message you the coordinates before you spawn in. If you spawn in earlier we will have to come and fetch you.”

“Ah, right! Thanks for the reminder.”

“No probs.” Élise winks.

“But I can make my character already, right?”

“Yeah, shouldn’t be an issue, you can recieve PMs in the chara creation. Just don’t press spawn.”

“Alright.” My girlfriend smiles.

“Anyway, see you later.” My sister closes the door behind her.

“So, are you ready for your next adventure?” I ask Sam while I help her with her leg.

“With you? Always.” She gives me a kiss on the cheek.

“Charmer.” I smile as I put her leg away.

“I know.”

I get back on the bed with her and Sam almost immediately pushed me down against the mattress, giving me a multitude of smaller kisses, starting in my neck, moving back to my cheek and finally ending on my lips.

“Need to take some advantage of our private time now, before we dive in.”

“You’d be surprised how much private time we can get in the game too.” I kiss her back on her lips.

“Is that so?”

“Mhmm. And even so, I don’t think the others mind a clingy and super gay Sam. You should’ve seen my sister with Nikki last time.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Nikki is a vampire in-game and she does like her blood from time to time.”

“Wow, that dietary change is pretty rad I guess.”

“Mhmm. And I think the both of them enjoy how it feels too.”

“So lewd.” Sam giggles as she rolls off me to my side.

“Yeah.” I roll on my side while Sam does the same, so we can both stare in each other's eyes.

“My pretty catgirl.” Sam boops my nose with her finger.

I giggle. “My badass girlfriend.”

Before I put on my headset I quickly get out of bed and head towards the door.

“For Pocky and Mochi?”

I nod. “They like snuggling with us when we sleep, and it’s fun to wake up with them.”

The moment I open the door a curious Pocky walks in already.

“Hey there Pocky, we’re going to sleep.”

Pocky meows.

“What does she say?”

“She wishes us a good night.”

“Wish her a good night from me too!”

I do as my girlfriend asks and Pocky replies with a happy mewl before I head back to bed.

“See you in-game, sweetie?” I hold her hand as I hover my finger over the switch.

“Will be right there.” 

The headset switches on and soon I find myself back in a familiar place.

“Hey there, kitten.”

Hilda was already waiting for me, she’s sitting upright looking at the map. “Alright, these are the coordinates…. and sent.”

“Hey Hilda.”

She walks over to me and gives me a hug. “So, is there gonna be a day where you are not going to show people you are a catgirl?”

“Perhaps.” I hug her back.

“And I also heard about another cat girl from your sister?”

“Yeeeee. And there might be another one soon too.”

“Another one?”

I explain the situation with Carol and Hilda starts laughing. “Well, I guess I can see why she would like the idea. But as you said, trying it out in game is probably the first course of action.”

“Yeah…”

“Oh, by the way, how are you feeling about the heat thing?”

“It came as a bit of a shock really, I never thought about it before.”

“I can understand that.” She pats my head. “For all we know it might not affect you, but better be safe than sorry.”

“Mhmm. My sister said something similar.”

“Want me to buy you a cat food bowl to be sure? Maybe a cat collar too?”

“Hilda, Imma bite you.” I pout.

“Just kidding, just kidding.” She laughs. “If you ever change your mind though, just tell me.”

I chomp her hand.

“Ouch!”

“I warned you.” 

“Hilda, Ami, you awake already?” I hear my sister from outside the tent.

“Yeah, we are.” Hilda replies.

“Great, have you already sent a message to Sam?”

“I did, I did.” Hilda exits the tent, but before doing so she winks at me. “Don’t stay in bed for too long, we need to go and find your girlfriend.”

“Yeah yeah.” I’m still a bit pouty because of her teasing but once she leaves the tent I quickly get dressed.

Let’s hope Sam didn’t insert the wrong numbers. 

“Feels good to be back in this game to be honest.” My sister comments when I get out of the tent. She’s stretching her arms and legs too.

“Yeah, I missed this as well.” Nikki smiles, uncovering her vampiric canines.

“Yep.” Hilda starts packing up our tent after me. “Sam said she was going to send a message right before she spawns in, so we can wait here for a bit longer.”

“How accurate is the spawn mechanic?” I sit myself down on one of the logs next to the extinguished campfire.

“Pretty accurate.”

“And what does that mean?”

“Within a kilometer or so.”

“That’s still quite a lot of area to cover...”

My sister nods. “That’s what? The area of a circle is radius squared times pi, isn’t it?”

“Mhmm, just over three square kilometers.” Nikki puts the last of their tent away.

“Yikes, how are we going to do that?”

“I do have one of these.” Hilda takes some kind of pistol out of her backpack.

“A flare gun? Isn’t that risky?” My sister sits down next to me.

Hilda nods. “That’s why I’m not in the biggest rush to use it.” She puts the flare gun back. “There still might be bandits in the area, so unless you want to get into a fight right away…”

“Mhmm.” I nod. “So what do we do?”

“I think it’s best we split up in two groups then, if Sam stays put it shouldn’t take too terribly long before we find her.”

“Allright, and what are the groups? Me with Nikki and you with Ami?” My sister pokes her sword in the ashes.

“That’s indeed what I was thinking.”

“Alrighty then.” My sis pats my head.

“Keep Hilda safe, ok?”

“I’ll try.” 

We stay put for ten more minutes, talking about the plan before Hilda gets up from her tree stump. “Just got the message from Sam, ready to move out?”

“Yesh.” I jump upright and join my partner.

“Send a message once you find her, and then rendezvous back here.”

“Yes ma’am.” My sister salutes Hilda and heads out to the south together with Nikki.

“So we head north and work our way clockwise?” I follow Hilda down the woods.

“Mhmm.” She nods. “Let’s just hope your sister knows the difference between clockwise and counterclockwise.”

“Ah, it shouldn’t be an issue. She has Nikki with her after all.”

“Fair point.” Hilda laughs.

We follow the stream up north for about 600 meters before turning east, trying to make sure we keep walking in a circle.

“How do we know if we aren’t walking in a circle though?”

“Gut instinct?” She shrugs. “Honestly this isn’t a perfect plan and it might take a while, but in any case it’s better than the flare option. I can somewhat guestimate our route based on the map.”

“Myeah.”

Right at that moment my ears perk up as I hear a yelp in the distance, coming from the east.

“Did you hear something?”

“I heard someone yell from that direction.” I point my finger towards where the sound came from.

“Sam?”

I shake my head. “Sounded more like a man to me.”

“Let’s check it out though.”

I agree with Hilda as we pick up the pace towards the sound.

Before we can get there, I can hear a second yelp, this voice was even deeper.

I look over to Hilda who now has started running. “I heard that too.”

It doesn’t take long to arrive at the source of the sounds. There were two men, one was pinned to a tree with an arrow in his shoulder, the other one was lying motionless on the floor, arrow in his back.

“H...help me…” The man who was nailed to the tree moans out in pain.

I take my staff at the ready but before I can cast a spell Hilda stops me.

“Look at their getup, Ami. Don’t you remember it?”

I take a close look at their uniform and now Hilda has put my attention to it, they do look vaguely familiar.

“These were the same uniforms as the bandits who blocked the road.”

“Aaaah.”

“Yeah, they saw me spawn in and thought I was easy pickings, and started to chase me.” With a thump a tall, tanned, blonde cat girl lands next to us on the forest ground, a longbow in her hand and a quiver on her back. The thump almost made Hilda fall on her bum.

“Sam?” I hesitantly ask.

“Yep.” She slings the bow over her shoulder and embraces me. My head at the perfect height to get squeezed against her ample bosom.

“Ah, oops, sorry kitten.”

“D-don’t worry, it was n-nice…”

Sam smirks and looks at Hilda. “And sorry for surprising you Hilda. I climbed up the tree to lay an ambush for these two.”

“It’s fine.” Hilda smiles. “So a ranger, huh?”

“Yeah, I wanted something that can do some supporting and can do some decent damage.”

“I’d say you picked well then.”

Hilda explains to me that a ranger can, apart from shooting arrows into things, buff the offensive, defensive and healing capabilities of their allies.

“So Sam picked the perfect party synergy for us?”

“Pretty much.”

Sam looks incredibly proud of herself.

“Anyway, what do we do with that guy?” I nod to our temporary prisoner who is still hanging against the tree.

“I’m not a terribly big fan of executions.” Hilda pats the back of her own head. “If you heal him we can just tie him to the tree so he at least has a shot of survival, while also giving us plenty of time to get away. What do you say Sam? They were chasing you after all.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Sam nods and kneels down in front of the guy. “If you come after us again, this time I’ll try to aim a bit more to the left.” She pokes her finger in the middle of his chest. “Right about hereso, like your buddy over there. Capiche?”

The bandit nods silently after which Hilda ties him up with some rope while Sam removes the arrow and I start to heal him.

Although I vehemently agree with this course of action, I do hope letting him go doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass.

FieryKathy