"Oh, the things I wouldn't do to get rid of that bastard!" A somewhat fat man with the face of a pig screamed in excitement as he slapped his knee in obvious glee.
"M-master! We're still in old man Karloman's territory!" A middle-aged man with a suit and tie said, trying to calm down the fat man.
"Who cares! That ancient thing can barely move his old bones, much less compare to me. His first son is a complete magical cripple, and his second son hasn't come back for 3 months when the trip was only supposed to take one. If he's actually alive, then... that would suck." The fat man's face turned even uglier at the thought.
"Whatever. His Majesty has already given me approval. As long as we don't fuck up serious time, I can finally get that old man's territory." The fat man mumbled to himself before sighing. He was fully aware of the incredible risk he was taking, but he still thought it would be worth it.
He and old man Karloman were once sworn rivals, battling each other through intrigue, duels, and war. However, now, one had grown to be so old he struggled to stand and the other had turned into a fat pig. Thinking about their sad fates, the fat man could only grasp his head in exasperation.
His health was already failing. After his two daughters were brutally raped and murdered by a criminal, he had fallen into depression and his already high calory intake had skyrocketed.
In truth, he would likely die in six or so years. Hence, the only reason he was bothering with this and not just enjoying his last days was that his ego was too big, and he would refuse to lose to old man Karloman, who still had ten or so years to live.
Or maybe, he was just sad. Sad and lonely. He looked up at the clear sky, his eyes closing as the harsh rays of the sun tried to burn his pupils.
The fat man sighed and moved his titanic frame forward, the middle-aged man trailing behind the fat man with a look of sadness. People quickly got out of the way and bowed to him, not daring to lift their faces in front of such a famous noble.
Unknown to both men, a ship was currently sailing through the ocean at a fast pace. On top of it stood a perfectly healthy Sirus Karloman and an also perfectly healthy Luna, who was currently sitting at the edge of the boat, her legs kicking randomly in boredom.
In her hands was a long fishing rod, and she was trying to fish. Unfortunately, it seemed as though all the fishes were spooked away by the boat, so she could only groan as she added yet another couple hundred meters to the line.
She had learned how to fish from a kind group of sailors who had offered to teach her in exchange with some help on the boat. At this point, everyone knew of Luna's tyrannical strength, so Sirus hadn't said anything to the sailors.
Luna had readily agreed and helped. As with most things she did, she did it quickly and neatly. The various sailors had then shown her various fishing techniques and tools, including nets, rods, spears and even electric shocks.
She had taken a couple days to get the hang of it and a month of on-and-off practice to become just as good as the sailors at it. She had also learned quite a bit about the boat and the language during that time and had even convinced Sirus to teach her some navigation.
"Sirus! Sirus! Look! Fishy!" She yelled as she felt the line furiously pull down the rod. She stood up in excitement and started reeling, hoping for a big fish.
Rolling his eyes from his position at the back of the ship, Sirus walked over to Luna and looked over to where the line seemed to go.
He smirked and pointed out at the sea. "What's wrong, Luna? I thought you said your senses could tell you everything?"
Confused, Luna looked at him before poking her head further out the boat to look at her own line.
Trailing behind it was a giant seaweed, several dozen meters in length and god knows how many meters going down. Seeing that, Luna's face instantly turned red because of a mixture of fury and embarrassment.
"Stupid grass! Stupid! Stupid!" She stomped her feet in anger and cut the line with a swipe of her claws. Still angry, her body flashed and disappeared.
Sirus blinked and looked over at the seaweed, only to see various blurs breaking the surface, tearing apart the seaweed. After a couple seconds, Luna reappeared in the ship, her whole body dripping wet.
"Ugh, clothes uncomfortable. Sticky to me, annoying." She said, her voice had gotten a lot better since Sirus first met her. She had lost the squeaky tone and the constant voice crack and it had instead turned into a beautiful sing-song voice.
Naturally, there was still room for improvement, but Luna hadn't had the time yet to learn singing. After all, even though she was millions of times faster than a regular human, she wasn't omniscient and her brain could only handle so much information at once. Besides, there wasn't anyone good enough at singing on the ship to teach her.
Sara was okayish, but she wasn't willing to teach Luna. All the Ravens, as Luna had learned they were called, had somehow developed a quite heavy dislike towards Luna and Sirus, which was understandable.
One was an extremely annoying monster that could kill you with a poke and had multiple times played some pretty bad pranks on them. She had stopped now after Sirus had talked some sense into her, but even though she apologized, the Ravens had never forgiven her for tearing all their clothes while they were sleeping and dropping them on the middle of the ship.
As for Sirus, well, he extended their mission time from a couple weeks to 4 months. Furthermore, the gains they had personally gotten were quite meager, as the only real 'loot' from Sirus' expedition was a lot of maps and a crazy beastkin with a taste for murder. All the Ravens got were a couple interesting stones they picked up from the island, and even those were more or less worthless.
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Therefore, Sirus could only act apologetic to them and do his best to let their return trip be comfortable. As for Luna, she was confused about why the Ravens were being mean, but Sirus simply explained to her that they were in a bad mood until they reached the continent. Luna nodded in understanding while not understanding anything.
Sirus snorted as he tried to hold his laughter in. Luna gave him a stinking eye and humphed before vanishing, likely having run off to Sirus' room to dry off.
Sirus had to put in a lot of effort to get the catgirl to, if not comply, at least understand some of society's basic rules of conduct. Things like 'Don't murder everything just because you can' and 'Don't run in front of the creepy old men naked'. The latter one was done more for the sake of the old men though, since it was highly, highly unlikely anything would ever be able to touch the catkin if she didn't want them to.
Luna instantly arrived in Sirus' room and quickly took off her sopping wet clothes. Annoyed, she threw them on Sirus' bed and threw herself on her own bed that she had built after getting bored of sleeping outside, deciding that pestering Sirus for the whole night was much more fun.
Although, admittedly, there were very few 'fun' things on the ship other than Sirus. Only now did she realize that she kind of missed her little island, for while it was boring and dull, it was very peaceful and she had all the space she needed. Here, she felt cramped and limited.
Her tail that she usually kept wrapped around her leg when she was not using it for balance shot out and grabbed the blankets and pulled them over her head as her hands hugged a pillow. She was tempted to vent her frustration on the soft thing but eventually decided to wait and find something better to vent herself on. Like a fish. That wasn't algae.
At first, Sirus thought that she liked fishing because she liked eating fish, since she was a catkin and it was common knowledge that a catkin's favorite food was fish, but as it turns out, Luna had stopped eating altogether a long time ago, her body basically producing enough energy that it would rival the most powerful nuclear powerplant of our world.
After a while of some light snoring, Luna woke up to the pitiful sound of a door opening. She peeked out from under the covers to see Sirus trying to navigate his way in the room. Although Luna had night vision, Sirus obviously didn't, and there was not a shred of light in the room.
Usually, they would get some from the oil lamps, but they had burned out and needed to be replaced.
Smirking and still feeling quite miffed about her earlier embarrassment, Luna creeped her way out of the covers and behind Sirus.
When Sirus felt something brush his back in a strange manner, he quickly froze up before murmuring "Jesus, Luna. Don't creep me out like that."
He relaxed, knowing full well who was trying to prank him. However, when he felt the warm touch of skin on his back, he froze up again and slowly said, his voice calm but serious.
"Luna, are you naked right now?"
Although he couldn't see it, Luna smirked and poked his back with her finger, having retracted her claws. "Yes. Clothes wet, your fault."
"How is it my fault!?" Sirus said, exasperated. He tried to shake her off but she refused to detach from his back. "Luna, come on. Get off."
"But I like!" Luna whined as she curled her legs around his stomach and grasped his shoulders with her hands. Even her tail wrapped around his waist, completely securing her position on him.
An idea quickly popped into Sirus' mind and it was his turn to smirk. He sat down on his bed and then laid down, his back facing the bed. Naturally, Luna was still there and ended up getting crushed between Sirus' body and the bed.
She laughed as he then tickled her feet. Finally, after a lot of effort on his part, always having to be careful not to hurt her, lest her instincts take over, he finally peeled her off of him.
He had only seen her instincts take over once when a particularly rude sailor tried to punch her after she playfully threw him down a set of stairs. The end result of the sailor wasn't pretty, and it had left a deep impression on everyone. Unfortunately, the sailor didn't survive the incident.
Luna looked down sadly as Sirus forcefully dressed her. He had grown quite used to seeing the catkin naked, so he had developed at least some resistance to her body. However, he still had to ask her to wear her underwear by herself.
Truthfully, handling Luna was like handling a young child. A steroid-crazed child that never ran out of energy and could kill you in an instant, but still a child, as Sirus had quickly learned.
It was funny and yet sad. Sirus hadn't decided which one it was yet because it made for some pretty funny shows sometimes and her unrestrained attitude made her a very good crewmate, at least as long as you're not the target. However, seeing her obviously struggling to learn things even a ten-year-old would know, like language or etiquette, or even just seeing her depressed look whenever she got moody and stared back at the island they came from made Sirus feel a bit empty inside.
After dressing Luna, Sirus ordered her to either go back to sleep or go outside to play. He needed to finish his maps, and quickly. They were only a couple days away from the continent at last.
Luna nodded sadly and, after a short debate, chose to just sleep. Hiding under the covers once again, sleep quickly claimed her.
~~~~~~~~~~
On the continent, an old woman with a long staff and some mediocre robes were walking up and down a corridor, occasionally hitting her head with her staff.
"Fuck me I'm growing old. I must have failed the spell... Yes, it must have failed..." She said, anxious. She cast the spell again, a torrent of mana swirling around her before revealing a mirror.
Inside the mirror were giant monsters, each one of them had enough strength to shatter kingdoms, some powerful enough to destroy everything on the continent. What made it even more terrifying was that they were all working together.
The woman stared with wide eyes. She could only see a mind-boggling fast blur speed through the monsters, it's speed far too much for them to handle. She watched as every single one of those terrifying creatures was torn to pieces.
Limbs littered the floor, heads rolled and a bloody ocean was formed as a result of so many giant creatures perishing. At the end of it, a creature baked head to toe in blood stood. Its image was distorted, it's power obviously not something a mere spell could decipher.
The next instant, the figure turned to face the old woman. Seeing this, the old woman instantly ended the spell, her heart beating so fast it threatened to rip out of her chest.
"... Well then, it's not a mistake." The old woman trembled. She cast another mysterious spell and another mirror appeared.
In this mirror, the same creature that she couldn't make out seemed to be in a boat. Surrounding it were several humans, all going about their daily business.
"No... It can't be..." The woman murmured, her hand trembling. This time, the monster in the mirror turned towards her, staring straight into the old woman's eyes.
The world seemed to stop at that moment. Gathering up all her courage, the old woman ended the spell.
The mirror vanished, and the old woman fell on her knees. Several nearby guards saw this and quickly ran up to her, helping her get up.
"Quickly, call His Majesty. I believe that something truly frightening has just come into the world..." The old woman said. The guards quickly nodded and one of them ran off while the others helped the old woman.
Unknown to the old woman, it wasn't that Luna was so powerful she could see such a spell. Instead, she had merely felt a strange disturbance in her senses and looked at where it came from but saw nothing.
Those two events confused her, but Luna being Luna, she had forgotten both of them after a heartbeat.