Cathulhu Online, MUNYA!

Chapter 7 – Cat Dad Go Swimming

Personal Quest: Pang Pang's Trouble

The inn owner, Pang Pang, wishes to restock his ingredient supply, but the merchants that always delivered the food ingredients are quite late. Thus, Pang Pang plans to collect some raw ingredients from nature while he waits for the merchant.

But there is a problem. MSG Seaweed that Pang Pang needs can only be harvested from certain seaweed monsters - Nephew Seaweed and Niece Seaweed.

Kill the seaweed monsters and collect 100 pieces of MSG Seaweed. Then, deliver them to Pang Pang to complete the quest.

Quest Reward: Pang Pang's Respect, 10 Contribution EXP, MSG Seaweed Salad Recipe.

…

Xiaomao was delighted. Even though the NPC wouldn't give him gold coins, the recipe would be extremely useful.

In this game, satiety existed. Players could get debuff or abnormal status effects if they didn't eat anything for a day. If players persisted and ignored the hunger bar, the abnormal status effects would be more severe, and it might even decrease status attributes permanently!

On the other hand, if players diligently ate good food and never skipped a meal, they had a low chance of acquiring free allocable status points after every meal. Moreover, exceptional food could even increase spiritual root points upon consumption!

Thus, food recipes were treated the same way as premium items. If the food could potentially increase status points, the recipe could be sold for a lot of money. And if players had a chef or a cook NFT, they could turn their game characters into a money printer as the food could be sold for a lot of gold coins.

Xiaomao immediately accepted the task.

"I'll do it, munya! Where can I find the MSG seaweed, munya?"

Ding

<You have accepted the quest.>

Pang Pang brightly smiled, "The Nephew and Niece Seaweeds live in the sea near the Stone Cliff to the northeast of here. You might have to dive and fight underwater."

"I see, munya."

The first quest forced him to fight underwater right away, but he didn't mind. The underwater battle was his race's strongest point.

In the future, underwater battles, naval warfare, and the underwater city would be one of the main focuses in the game after the land update. Sea explorations, pirates, and sea monsters would run rampant, and some story quests happened in the middle of the ocean. Because Xiaomao thought of this, he picked this race as the main character.

For now, this quest would be a light warm-up for the future to come.

Xiaomao took a quick bath and left the inn right away. He rushed toward the local market to gear himself with his pocket money.

…

As soon as Xiaomao entered a crowded area, he got swarmed by girls and cat lovers. Once again, his fur was ravished by the dirty hands of random players.

And once again, the number of cat food in his inventory increased. He was confused about how it appeared there.

"Make way, munya! Let me shop, munya!"

Xiaomao pushed through the crowd and reached a stationary local NPC in a red Imperial uniform, who had been sitting on a desk next to a huge signboard [Public Marketplace].

Seeing Xiaomao approach him, the NPC looked up, "What can I do for you, Mr. Cat?"

"I need to purchase things, munya. Is there any good potion for sale, munya?"

A game shopping menu appeared before Xiaomao. It was the system menu of the public marketplace.

Unlike the NFT marketplace, this version of the marketplace allowed players to deposit their in-game items there to sell to other players for gold coins. At the same time, players could buy items from other players here.

Every player could search for specific items, and the market system would display all related items on sale to that player. Of course, they could sort the price to see which one with the same quality was the cheapest.

Xiaomao pondered for a moment, trying to recollect the memory in his previous life.

'Seaweed monster… It should be a plant-based monster in the sea. I don't need anything fancy, but I will definitely need a lot of those since weapon durability will decrease so fast.'

Xiaomao input a few keywords in there and began buying items in the market.

…

Newbie Healing Potion (Requirement Level 1-10)

Effect: Heal 20 HP

Price: 5 Gold Coins.

…

Copper Pruning Scissors (Requirement: None)

ATK: 3

Durability: 20/20

The best tool for gardeners. You can use it as a temporary weapon in case of an emergency.

Price: 2 Gold Coins.

…

Xiaomao checked his available inventory slots. He calculated how many spears he needed for a long grinding.

New NFT characters started out with only 10 inventory slots. If a player needed extra rooms, they had to buy inventory-slot expansion items, using their PACTs. The max item slots that an NFT character could have was 100.

Xiaomao opened another menu. He pressed the cash shop button to look for inventory expansion items.

Fortunately, there was a promotion. A package of 10 inventory slots was being sold for 700 PACTs.

Xiaomao checked the normal price. It cost 100 PACT to expand one extra slot. With the discount, Xiaomao could save some money.

He smiled and added 9 packages to the shopping cart. Then, he checked out.

Just like that, he spent 6,300 PACTs to expand his character's inventory slots to the maximum.

After his inventory slots were expanded, he began purchasing items right away.

90 Copper Pruning Scissors

150 Newbie Healing Potions

Each pair of scissors took one slot while the potions were stacked in one slot. Just like that, 93 slots were occupied.

Xiaomao glanced at the two slots, which stored several cans and packages of cat food. His pupils became dull when he looked at them.

'Those freaking disgusting dirty hooman. But I'll take them anyway. Food is food.'

He hadn't realized it yet. As Xiaomao experienced the traumas of a cat, he began to treat other players as HOOMAN instead of humans.

Then, he glanced at his HP bar.

It showed as 10/10 HP.

The amount was pathetic as Xiaomao hadn't allocated his status points yet. With only 1 VIT, he only had 10 HP.

However, Xiaomao chose not to allocate his status points at the moment for the best benefit.

He knew an exploit, and he would use it to the fullest!

After getting everything he needed, Xiaomao rushed toward the beach near the town.

…

As Xiaomao ran with his eight tentacles, many curious players followed him, recording his movements and taking screenshots.

"Yah! So cute!"

"Let's tame that catopus."

"Idiot! That's a player!"

"Ugh, I really want one as a pet."

None of them saw Xiaomao's expression. His cold eyes and dark expression belonged to an angry yakuza.

'Disgusting hooman.'

He jumped into the sea. As soon as Xiaomao jumped into the sea, the players stopped chasing after him. After all, they could not breathe underwater.

After getting rid of the nuisance, Xiaomao followed the clues, given by Pang Pang. The Stone Cliff was only a kilometer toward the northeast of the beach town.

There was no HUD or mini-map. When traveling, every player needed to use their skills and knowledge to get to their destination.

Xiaomao tried to breathe underwater. Then, he discovered that he had gills under his head.

Below his head was the octopus mouth and gills. He could also eat things with the lower mouth.

Xiaomao felt weird when he swallowed seawater into his lower mouth. He felt like he drank water with his butthole.

Because of the stimulation, he subconsciously farted.

PUU

Black ink came out instead of bubbles. Secondly, his satiety bar decreased by 10%.

'Whoops. I forgot. I'll keep that in mind.'

Performing strange actions or using a racial ability decreased the satiety bar. Standing still wouldn't consume anything. But if Xiaomao moved around or did something, the satiety bar would gradually decrease.

Xiaomao returned to the water surface. He opened a package of cat food and ate all of its content. Then, his satiety returned to full, and he continued traveling in the sea.

Xiaomao looked ahead. Despite being submerged in the sea, he could see everything as if he was in a closed-door swimming pool wearing a swimming google.

It was a new experience. He didn't get to play around like this in his previous life.

'How nice and calm. I like diving now.'

The waves on the surface of the sea bobbed up and down. Xiaomao was annoyed that the sea waves pushed him back to the shore, so he quickly got back in the water and headed northeast.

After swimming for an hour, he came to a coral reef area, next to a stone cliff.

The current was high and hard. Xiaomao had a hard time swimming there with his 1 STR and 1 DEX.

As Xiaomao continued to swim toward the stone cliff that Pang Pang had told him, he ran into a small fish.

As Xiaomao got close, red HP bars appeared on top of those fishes.

Glutton Betta, Level 7

This fish didn't attack him, but it stared at him as if it was looking at a bigger fish.

Fortunately, the Glutton Betta turned around and swum away.

Xiaomao let out a sigh of relief that he didn't have to fight. He dove deeper and got closer to the cliff.

Then, finally, he found his quest monsters right below the cliff in the sea.

Niece and Nephew Seaweeds were actually underwater plants, but they wobbled and chased after nearby small fishes to catch them.

Nephew Seaweed, Level 2

Niece Seaweed, Level 2

"There you are, munya!"

Xiaomao brought out copper pruning scissors right away. He held it with his two front tentacles.

He approached the seaweed and snipped them.

SNIP

10 Damage

Half of the seaweed stalk was cut, but it hadn't died yet. Its HP bar was half depleted.

The seaweed wobbled and coiled around Xiaomao's scissors.

Ding

<Niece Seaweed is corroding your Copper Pruning Scissors.>

<Seawater is corroding you Copper Pruning Scissors.>

<Your Copper Pruning Scissors' durability has decreased by 1.>

"Figured, munya."

Xiaomao had foreseen this. These seaweeds never proactively attacked people or swimmers, but they always retaliated against nearest assailants and decreased their equipment durability.

SNIP

With another snip, the stalk was cut, and the seaweed's HP reached zero.

The destroyed seaweed vanished. Then, new items appeared in Xiaomao's game inventory.

This was the game's mechanic. Item drops from monsters were always directly sent to players' inventories.

But strangely, several items appeared in front of Xiaomao and floated along with the water current. This phenomenon only happened when there was no room in the player's inventory to receive the auto-loot rewards.

Ding

<Your inventory is full.>

"Munya?"

Xiaomao frowned. He remembered that he had left 7 slots open after he bought all the items. He took a pair of scissors out, so there should be 8 empty slots.

Even if the regular mob dropped some items, there shouldn't be that many. One monster usually had a common drop, a quest drop, a rare drop, and a rare equipment drop. If a player was lucky, they could get a unique drop once every 1,000 kills.

Therefore, Xiaomao thought those stackable items shouldn't fill up his seven inventory slots at once after one kill.

Xiaomao swam away from the monster den and looked at his inventory.

"HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE, MUNYA?!"